Paulette Callen – Satyagraha
I think you can tell saints,
not by their miracles and thin faces,
but by their smiles.
St. Francis, I think, grinned
from ear to ear
at a sunbeam or a tree-frog,
at a child or a pope.
The Buddha smiled and is smiling still
from Katmandu to Riverside Drive.
The whales smile
beaming serenity in man-made-charnel seas,
diving and dancing around our bloody factory ships,
singing their mantras
while we dissect their kidnapped children,
living and loving gently
through our poisons and wastes and wars;
imprisoned, patiently playing our games;
never repaying us in kind.
They are finally winning us over.
Gandhiji would have loved it.
Paulette Callen
February 2 1989 Earth First!