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Hi All,
Wanted to share this poem.
Poem: Please Call Me By My True Names
By Thich Nhat Hanh in October 2004
Don’t say that I will 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 is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a 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 also 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 the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.
Warm Regards,
--
Rene Salazar
Rani Madhavapeddi
unread,
Aug 3, 2025, 10:43:03 PM8/3/25
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Thanks Rene. His poems have so much clarity and precision they go straight to the heart.❤️
Rani Madhavapeddi Patel
> On Aug 3, 2025, at 7:35 PM, Rene <ren...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
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Here is one I like the concept of Ubuntu in a way:
Interrelationship – poem by Thich Nhat Hanh
You are me, and I am you. Isn’t it obvious that we “inter-are”? You cultivate the flower in yourself, so that I will be beautiful. I transform the garbage in myself, so that you will not have to suffer.
I support you; you support me. I am in this world to offer you peace; you are in this world to bring me joy.
(from “Call me by My True Names – The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh”, Parallax Press, 2005.)
