Living Mosaic
Posted by: Poetry, April 2011
“This I Mourn: A Lamentation for Osama bin Laden” by Gregory Boyd.
One fewer soul on Spaceship Earth,
Our Father’s Mother feels the dearth.
We are wholly imperfect:
perfectly incomplete.
This, I mourn with each passing hour,
A violent end to brutal power.
Yet, I know what I believe—
We are wholly imperfect:
perfectly incomplete.
Who is my neighbor?
Did he ask?
Love your neighbor.
Not my task
Smote my neighbor.
Who now basks?
This, I mourn with each passing hour,
A violent end to brutal power.
Yet, I know what I believe—
We are wholly imperfect:
perfectly incomplete.
Did he hunger?
Does he feast?
Sought he victory?
Through defeat?
This, I mourn with each passing hour,
A violent end to brutal power.
Yet, I know what I believe—
We are wholly imperfect:
perfectly incomplete.
Buddha says, “Forsake desire.”
Would that I were as a spire,
Thrusting up toward Heaven above
Penetrating the God of love,
Sharp to pierce Holy Empire.
Where is my neighbor?
Who is your God?
Who is my neighbor?
Where is your God?
Bountiful blessings:
The prayers we sow.
Militant aggressing:
Onward we go.
This, I mourn with each passing hour,
A violent end to brutal power.
Yet, I know what I believe—
We are wholly imperfect:
perfectly incomplete.
To know peace,
To know relief,
To rest in peace,
Without grief;
Thus, to decease.
To know no more,
What you abhor;
Eternal sleep,
Sojourn complete:
Life is defeat.
This, I mourn with each passing hour,
A violent end to brutal power.
Yet, I know what I believe—
We are wholly imperfect:
perfectly incomplete;
Wantonly unpredictable,
We lamenting beasts.
By Gregory Boyd
