If I Am All Mankind, Are They

It's True That What Is Morbid Is Highly Valued Today, And So You May Think That I Am Only Joking Or That I've Devised Just One More Means Of Praising Art With The Help Of Irony.

Under Various Names, I Have Praised Only You, Rivers! You Are Milk And Honey And Love And Death And Dance. From A Spring In Hidden Grottoes, Seeping From Mossy Rocks, Where A Goddess Pours Live Water From A Pitcher, At Clear Streams In The Meadow, Where Rills Murmur Underground, Your Race And My Race Begin, And Amazement, And Quick Passage.

A Weak Human Mercy Walks In The Corridors Of Hospitals And Is Like A Half-thawed Winter.

Human Reason Is Beautiful And Invincible. No Bars, No Barbed Wire, No Pulping Of Books, No Sentence Of Banishment Can Prevail Against It. It Puts What Should Be Above Things As They Are. It Does Not Know Jew From Greek Nor Slave From Master.

Forget The Suffering You Caused Others. Forget The Suffering Others Caused You. The Waters Run And Run, Springs Sparkle And Are Done, You Walk The Earth You Are Forgetting. Sometimes You Hear A Distant Refrain. What Does It Mean, You Ask, Who Is Singing? A Childlike Sun Grows Warm. A Grandson And A Great-grandson Are Born. You Are Led By The Hand Once Again. The Names Of The Rivers Remain With You. How Endless Those Rivers Seem! Your Fields Lie Fallow, The City Towers Are Not As They Were. You Stand At The Threshold Mute.