Ramadan adventures... the best of Betty and Jan in Egypt

Misr's Reprise

There are days when the heart crumbles with the old world
ferment.
This is the test:
catch glimpses of hope amidst
rotting wood
that suffocates (or even
prevents?)
flame.
“Oppressed so long they could not stand…
Let my people go”.

...Glimpses like the earnest smile of the observing man
as one passes,
or the woman singing to her babe on the metro
that lull us beyond the pain,
proclaiming, “Open to love!”

Oma Duniya, what are you to we?
To be?
(beyond ‘to do’!)
and how do we
be: a presence of unity
fairness
forgiveness
love -
an ‘instrument of Your peace’
on hapless,
floundering
earth?

Find the inner fire that nothing can quench,
that sparks boundless love.
“Go down Moses…”
(or Buddha
or Gandhiji
or the people themselves frère Friere?
you and me)
“…Way down in Egypt land.
Tell ol’ Pharaoh to let my people go!”

Love, tell ol’ ego to let humanity soar:
above material traps
that burden wings with Nile sludge…
away from the fallacy of separation…
from attachment to power, distinction.
Let all people go.

This is Misr’s reprise
on days when we must push past
the surface of suffering
disintegration:
“Open to Love!”