[Prefatory Note: my poem on navigating the narrowing channel
Between personal happiness and public gloom.]
My 94th Birthday amid rubble and precious life
1.Demons Prowling
For these last years I felt
It was strange to be still alive
When so many around me were dead
Stranger still to stay young within
To receive and give love
While the planet burns
And untamed demons prowl
Plunging the world into total darkness
It seems even
The night sky shares the gloom of earth
Even the stars retreat as if on strike
Against demon stalkers of the night
Prowling about their mansions of deceit
Trampling upon their manicured gardens
Hatefully howling in the darkness
Until the only safe comfort zones
Were hidden distant in the galaxy
II. Precious Living
Yet despite the carnage
Roses bloom guarded by thorns
Gardenias retain their addictive aroma
A glorious bestowal of nature’s blessings
And yet we complain that it is not enough
Indulging our pure greed always wanting more
Yet our private and inner life eludes the grasp
Of beasts of prey and demons of the night
The joys of loving and being loved never age
Rather grow old together gathering wisdom
Year by year accepting and affirming what remains
What is lost as long as your love and presence
Resists abandonment, partners to the end
As long as the radiance of love infuses our lives
As long as the lives and legacies of our children
As long as this sturdy light of my life stays bright
Bringing tears of delight of love’s deepest roots
Through time and emotional memories
Good and bad playful ironic serious
That long we know we are still alive
To what always matters most up close
III. Jackal Dominion
Always darkness and light merge
At dawn and dusk never diverge
Almost as certain as death itself
Birds and cats know more than we
About the movements of earth and sky
Those blessed companions, therapists
Of the soul, minions of the heart
Until now spared from vengeful jackals
In control now our public destiny
Each day the shrouded bodies of babies
Subverts our sacred longing for serenity
With shrieks of horror by those left alive
While those others the jackals
Dare speak to us with gruesome clarity
Of unabashed evil means and ends
Yet they are there and we are here
For us living fearfully at a distance
Nothing worse is yet happening to me
Than nightly disturbances of sleep
But tomorrow a servant of the jackals
May knock hard on our door bringing
The news that that there is no more there
IV. Cry Freedom!
When slaves break their chains
And patriots of the earth become
Warriors gardeners poets engaging
In a fight worth winning for the sake
Of those we love and learn from
So long as the trusted soul breathes its light
While the body is busy with the work of dying
Life remains a precious gift of the god
Richard Falk
Santa Barbara, California
November 13, 2024
Global Justice in the 21st Century 