The Ark of Now

It is a time of fever pitch,

A time when the very stitch-work appears unraveling

And signs of the Catastrophic are etched 

Upon the face of the deep

I would build an Ark within my heart

Big enough to house the dream of Life

Strong enough to chart the seas of consciousness 

Until our moment can be won 

It would NOT be inspired by fear

Nor the wrath of God,

But by sorrow and by outrage 

For a race

Whose dual instincts shout 

Both love and murder 

Despite all gospels of restraint,

A race that

Finds itself knee-deep in furious undertows

Poised to slip back from Miracle 

To the restless chant of Chaos

Yet with limitless mind 

You and I could build an Ark 

Crafted from our humanity

Our most elevated moments

Of clarity

Of courage 

Of compassion

That reveal 

The vast, agonized beauty embedded 

Within our thwarted destiny

It would be fashioned from artifacts of kindness:

A soldier’s prayer for peace that still clings to a rusty nail,

A lullaby that drifts through open windows,

A choice of laughter against all odds,

A tear that dries quickly on the back of a hand,

A knee that bends before the grave of an enemy,

A greeting to a stranger through the mesh 

of a barbed wire fence… 

It would be forged from 

The cadences of heart and hand:

A shimmering note from Mozart,

A word from Shakespeare

A brushstroke of Van Gogh…

A million artists’ cries of astonished beauty

That rise stubbornly  

Above the refrain of poverty and hardship 

And all the incandescent visions 

Seeded in our souls

By Martin Luther King and Gandhi 

And embedded in the dense, considered silence of monks

Who gaze out upon the world from snow-shrouded caves

Their indelible footprints 

Left in History’s anonymous sands 

By those who gave their lives in service to others  

That neither wind nor time can erase  

As we each dream this Ark 

The synergy of thought will find momentum 

In kindred souls

Who have been battered by perception

And summoned to the sea as well

And as we work together, 

We will find ourselves connected

And as we create, 

We will discover the light within our nature

And someday out along the borders

Where Thought collaborates with Matter

The fever will break

And the rising waters recede

We will witness our Human Ark become resolute 

And of this Earth

Anchored in the dream of Creation

That moves through each of us 

Like a wind about the stars