Transition

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has returned to Vietnam, the place of his birth, to die.

The stubborn old man has been dying for five years, but I think he will be gone soon. He is unable to talk, but that is all right, he has said everything he has to say. And though I wish more people had heard him, they yet have the chance: his books are translated into more than thirty languages.

There is one thing in particular that I wish the leader of the Free World might have heard. If he had, I don’t think he would so readily divide the world into black and white, rich and poor, powerful and powerless, Mar-a-Lago and shithole.

I first heard this at a funeral. It will probably be heard at the old monk’s funeral. I hope you will hear it now.

Please Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow—
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope,
the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when Spring comes,
arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond,
and I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay his
“debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.