As We Sow
Life holds the balance evenly.
Love or Hate, which will it be?
Yours the choice and yours the destiny.
A spider crawling up a chair,
A mouse discovered hiding there,
Is crushed beneath a woman's heel
Because of fear.
The ants and woodlice swarming out
A burning brand in frantic rout,
Will not disturb the smug content
Of watching lout.
A chicken flying with a cry
From motor tires roaring by
Will draw a muttered curse from him
Who made it die.
Such tiny fear, such tiny hate,
Breeds tiny wars within our gate,
And merging with a million more
Destroy the state.
The spider stain upon the floor
Is one small drop of human gore;
For fear within a woman's heart
Will make a war.
The insect curling in the flame
Is murder by another name;
The killer speeding down the road
Must reap the blame.
Indifference to harmless things
Who crawl and creep and move on wings,
Is but the harbinger of hate
And all it brings.
The trapper does not know his steel
Makes wounds in him that never heal;
The teeth that close upon his throat
He does not feel.
And yet the cruelty he sees,
When done unto the least of these,
Must some day bring its reckoning
Of tragedies.
The beaver drowned to make a cloak
A lady's slender neck will choke;
The blood stream of the winter trail
The world will soak.
When dogs are taken to the pound
The place becomes a holy ground,
For where true faith has been betrayed
An angel's found.
The huntsman following the deer
With deadly cunning to its lair,
Will find at last his own torn corpse
Awaits him there.
Who stands above a fawn who dies
Will stare into his own wild eyes;
He is the victim of his lust
And he the prize.
For man and deer since time began
Together climbed from span to span.
The work of ages falls in dust
At whim of man.
For not an insect in the sun
But from the eon's wheel is spun,
And he who breaks the thread of life
Has time undone.
The Child, the Beaver and the Bee
Create a holy trinity,
Conceived within the womb of Life
In equity.
A neighbor's small impertinence
Can give another such offence
That armies need must shed their blood
In recompense.
A nation seeking to grow great
Will rear high walls around the state.
Without — the brotherhood of man,
Within — his hate.
For love is open-doored and free,
While prisons breed depravity.
Thrones, people totter in their cells
And cease to be.
In world where death is so secure
There is no need for man to war,
No need to hasten with his hate
To harvest more.
Each love we in the balance throw
Assuredly outweighs a foe;
The open hand held out to wrath
Deflects a blow.
Until at last we come to scan
The working of the Perfect Plan,
Wherein, transcendent, stands revealed
The Gentle Man.
Life holds the balance evenly.
Triumph — Defeat — which will it be?
Yours the choice and yours the destiny.
Love or Hate, which will it be?
Yours the choice and yours the destiny.
A spider crawling up a chair,
A mouse discovered hiding there,
Is crushed beneath a woman's heel
Because of fear.
The ants and woodlice swarming out
A burning brand in frantic rout,
Will not disturb the smug content
Of watching lout.
A chicken flying with a cry
From motor tires roaring by
Will draw a muttered curse from him
Who made it die.
Such tiny fear, such tiny hate,
Breeds tiny wars within our gate,
And merging with a million more
Destroy the state.
The spider stain upon the floor
Is one small drop of human gore;
For fear within a woman's heart
Will make a war.
The insect curling in the flame
Is murder by another name;
The killer speeding down the road
Must reap the blame.
Indifference to harmless things
Who crawl and creep and move on wings,
Is but the harbinger of hate
And all it brings.
The trapper does not know his steel
Makes wounds in him that never heal;
The teeth that close upon his throat
He does not feel.
And yet the cruelty he sees,
When done unto the least of these,
Must some day bring its reckoning
Of tragedies.
The beaver drowned to make a cloak
A lady's slender neck will choke;
The blood stream of the winter trail
The world will soak.
When dogs are taken to the pound
The place becomes a holy ground,
For where true faith has been betrayed
An angel's found.
The huntsman following the deer
With deadly cunning to its lair,
Will find at last his own torn corpse
Awaits him there.
Who stands above a fawn who dies
Will stare into his own wild eyes;
He is the victim of his lust
And he the prize.
For man and deer since time began
Together climbed from span to span.
The work of ages falls in dust
At whim of man.
For not an insect in the sun
But from the eon's wheel is spun,
And he who breaks the thread of life
Has time undone.
The Child, the Beaver and the Bee
Create a holy trinity,
Conceived within the womb of Life
In equity.
A neighbor's small impertinence
Can give another such offence
That armies need must shed their blood
In recompense.
A nation seeking to grow great
Will rear high walls around the state.
Without — the brotherhood of man,
Within — his hate.
For love is open-doored and free,
While prisons breed depravity.
Thrones, people totter in their cells
And cease to be.
In world where death is so secure
There is no need for man to war,
No need to hasten with his hate
To harvest more.
Each love we in the balance throw
Assuredly outweighs a foe;
The open hand held out to wrath
Deflects a blow.
Until at last we come to scan
The working of the Perfect Plan,
Wherein, transcendent, stands revealed
The Gentle Man.
Life holds the balance evenly.
Triumph — Defeat — which will it be?
Yours the choice and yours the destiny.
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