*~~~Please Call Me by My True Names~~~*

Please Call Me by My True Names

*** 

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow

because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply:  I arrive in every second

to be a bud on a spring branch,

to be a tiny bird, whose wings are still fragile,

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,

in order to fear and to hope,

the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death

of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly

metamorphosing on the surface of the river,

and I am the bird which, when spring comes,

arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily

in the clear water of a pond,

and I am also the grass-snake who,

approaching in silence, 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 12-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean

after being raped by a sea pirate,

and I am 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 in all walks of life.

My pain is like a river of tears,

so full it fills up the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and my laughs at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are but one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart can be left open,

the door of compassion.

(Thich Nhat Hanh)

(This poem was written in 1978, during the time of 
helping the boat people. It was first read at a retreat 
in Kosmos Center in Amsterdam, Holland.)