The Way You Look at Me

When I envision peace, I see us looking at each other without walls or tinted lenses. I see us breaking down social constructions of self and other. I see the poorest of the poor in the richest of the rich. I see you in me, in us, in all.

My problems are your problems and your problems are mine. We all certainly must attend to and work on our own internal and external landscape and take rightful ownership of that process, but what I mean by “My problems are your problems…” is that we share a universal consciousness embedded in everything we think, say, and do.

As we evolve in our families and businesses and friendships, let us not forget to evolve as a human family where the fight doesn’t end until everyone in this world not only is loved, but also feels loved.

This poem was born from a moment of deep humility. I found myself gazing into another person’s eyes, stripped of all the ego dressings, bowing my head as Grace allowed me to see that their choices and their path were my own even if I never made them or walked it, I very well could have.

Let’s choose not to look at each other with pity or disgust. Let’s choose instead to connect and trust that when we meet the eyes of another whether they are clad in the finest of gold or naked in the shaggiest of rags that the eyes we gaze into are the eyes of our own soul. Let the absent referent go and commit to the present human. This is the space where world peace will happen.

The Way You Look at Me 

I saw you standing on the street corner
With broken teeth and heart

You looked different, but intimately familiar
Like the antique clock in the five and dime shop
Beautiful in its timeless surrender, it was subtle and just stopped

The rage in your eyes was unmistakable
Your rebellious determination unshakable

The body you once called home
It’s gone

Your laughter, your touch
Faded memories called upon in each human shift and clutch

But that look from the soul
Where quiet rage turned into the joyful page
Of extant emotion
Framed on display in the museum
Where you left all of your items to be
Paraded and charaded

Resonated…
Deeply

I see you asking for change
I sense your cry as the mother wipes her son’s tearful eye
I hear your screams
Coming from the wounded
In the battlefield of dreams
I feel your smile as the sun draws in

The way you look at me
That depth
Where connection isn’t diluted or wrapped in cellophane

The rage evaporated
In our coming of age
And everywhere I look
I see and feel the familiar hook of heightened warmth
The dewiness from two excited palms touching

You called them out to come to me
I listened deeply
As my toes felt the fresh blades of grass

The Truth of the world born in that moment
At Last
The way you look at me

Om Shanti Om ~ Athea

Athea