Breathe Deep of Love

How is it that men can hate and do not love?

And if not finding love, do not seek it more and more,

Like a man desperately seeking air, lost in dark water?

Has his heart died then, if he, seeking and plunging,

Does not find it, or does it become sickened and old,

Dry like dust and chaff on the threshing floor?

How could hearts that pulse and beat with hot blood,

Seek to empty another of this sacred thing of us?

How do men who were once children forget this?

Can we forget the taste and flavor of laughing,

Or the sound of holding and embracing?

How can hearts forget these things if once they knew them?

I think men who hate or think to kill have lost their women,

Have lost the connection to mothers and sisters and lovers.

I cannot think to kill if I look through the soul of my lover.

If embracing and giving I cannot think to take life.

Or go farther back and think of the gentle touch of a mother.

Can you hate while remembering that touch?

Can you hate while wondering at the pains they took,

To bring such a holy thing as you or I into the world?

Take a moment to think on this, roll it over in your heart,

Taste the other side of it with the tongue of your mind.

Ponder this mystery: through the greatest act of love,

And pain and sorrow, you were brought forth,

Wet and wailing into the wild air and light,

As was I, as were we all, born forward into life,

And given our first comfort at our mother’s breast.

How can you or I or any of us think to snuff out,

This small fire of pulsing blood and heart?

Little boys upon apron strings know this truth.

I do not want to hate or kill another with hate.

I do not want his blood poured out upon the ground.

He and I were, not so long ago, young boys together,

Not so long ago, pulled squalling from our mother’s womb,

Not so long ago the gift of love given with lips and hearts,

In the tall grass and flowers or in the shade of trees.

Not for his skin, or where he lives or what he eats,

Not for religion or dogmas and creeds, will I empty him,

Of that which has given me such pleasure upon blankets,

Or in the grass and leaves, in empty lofts and meadows.

I will not return death for the pure gift of life,

Given so freely and at such a great price.

Instead I will put aside the tools of death and hate,

And breathe deep of love, exhale life.

Eric M. Petit