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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476671" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>If Compassion</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">If compassion is not <br>the fruit of your understanding<br>your tree is rootless and flawed<br>however beautiful the blossoms are.<br>And your eyes may be as lustrous<br>as polished stones<br>you've buffed like the moon on water<br>but there's nothing inside<br>and gold doesn't pour like dawn<br>from the dark ore of your suffering <br>when you cry.<br>If a child is shot in Gaza<br>and you don't bleed<br>for the evil seed in her head<br>as you would your own <br>then only the dead will sow your field<br>and you will gnaw the hard bread <br>of your own gravestone <br>like a book you should have read.<br>If compassion is not <br>the fruit of your understanding<br>however much is illuminated <br>by the rarity of your perception, <br>the lamp you go by <br>is still not ripe, <br>you're still a green apple <br>on the bough <br>in autumn.<br>The tongue is a shovel <br>and knowledge is soil<br>and you can use it <br>to dig a grave for your brother <br>or prepare a garden <br>as it was meant to do<br>and your words can flower <br>into fruit and bread <br>at the eastern doors of the dead<br>who will raise the sun up to their lips <br>and drink from it like a cup, <br>but if all your heart can do with blood <br>is jewel the eloquence of the blind <br>with lucid insights<br>then your siloes are nothing<br>but the empty thunder<br>of lightning without rain <br>and you will reap the sand like the scythe <br>of a crescent moon <br>that's never tasted grain.<br>And you may be a glutton, <br>you may stuff yourself day and night<br>like the liver of a goose <br>with spiritual insight<br>and squat like a rotund buddha on a tatami mat<br>squirming through the wormholes of your mind <br>to the other side of the universe<br>or knock like a xylophone <br>on the door of the last chakra <br>above your skull<br>like an embassy <br>you seek sanctuary in<br>but if you can't feel <br>the fangs of starvation <br>that withers a child <br>in the arms of her mother in Darfur<br>who gave birth to a lily <br>that will die like a bat<br>because the dark matter <br>in your cosmic frame of reference is fat, <br>then the advancing flame of your snakefire <br>is just another lethal candle <br>for all the charm of the choir <br>you can't train not to bite you.<br>If compassion is not <br>the fruit of your understanding<br>you will be disgorged <br>by the wiser serpents of life <br>like a black hole turned inside out <br>and thrown from the back of the truck <br>like the corpse of a sack of flour <br>in a refugee camp<br>and your blood will spoil <br>like the unused oil in a lamp<br>that never threw a light on anything. <br>You have a mouth, <br>but you won't scream murder, <br>you won't scream genocide<br>when you know what's being done.<br>You have a nose<br>but you pin it like a clothes peg <br>to a breezy clothesline<br>to sweeten your dirty laundry <br>by washing out the stink of the corpses.<br>You have eyes<br>but you keep them shut <br>to paint pictures on your windows <br>from the inside<br>to see what you want to see <br>in your house of warped mirrors<br>and if you should cry to look good <br>in front of the camera <br>you're prompted by a gland of TV tears<br>to cologne the air with cliches <br>that smell like the petals that fell<br>like the machetes of Uganda.<br>Rock-bands making radical money <br>whining about nothing, <br>wanna be killer bees <br>trying to make their honey sting<br>inside the hive of a contract <br>with plug and play guitars<br>and fireworks that swarm the stars<br>like chimney-sparks from Auschwitz. <br>You have ears.<br>But they're dead shells<br>and the sea you once listened for as a child<br>has been poured out of them<br>like living water <br>so you can't hear <br>your daughter <br>being raped in the Congo, <br>or the scream of the boy <br>who died like a toy-soldier <br>when the Hannibal hearts <br>of the cannibal generals <br>played war-games with his life.<br>If compassion is not <br>the fruit of your understanding<br>you will lick your heart <br>like a lump of coal <br>you tore out of your own chest, <br>trying to taste the diamonds, <br>and you will know what it means <br>when the eyelids of the light <br>close in upon you <br>like a starless night<br>that undoes the seams <br>of your wasteband constellations<br>like the stitches and staples <br>it uses to sew the children <br>back together <br>in a patchwork comforter of wounds <br>it will lay over your head <br>like a sky for the dead <br>all reds and gangrenes <br>as the faces of the children rise<br>one by one like ghoulish moons<br>and apple blossoms<br>to stain your death <br>with their foolish dreams.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Patrick+White">Patrick White</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476671" data-title="If Compassion de Patrick White" data-description="If compassion is not 
the fruit of your understanding
your tree is rootless and flawed
however beautiful the blossoms are.
And your eyes may be as lustrous
as polished stones
you've buffed like the moon on water
but there's nothing inside
and gold..."></div>
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