Strive, strive to keep your sanity

Against the heartless sinews of the day.

Strive, strive to bring back the bird

Of freedom that, distressed, flies away.

 

Look back and you will find

In the annals of time and space

Many like episodes of strangulation

Which were vanquished with patient grace.

 

Strive still to bring back into the fold

Of love and justice time’s truant turncoats;

Let the music of your tireless caring

Be the shepherd that sings back the goats,

 

Against the monuments they build

To  house retributional gods,

Present the temple of the heart

Where benevolent gods have their abodes.

 

What violent instruments did ever hack

The undefeated legacies of truth?

Strive to walk that conscientious step

That makes the mine field smooth.

 

No rose ever withholds its scent

For fear of envenomed air;

Let the sweetness of your striving

Time’s toxic destroyers dare.

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