Becoming 89
POETRY FORMAT, 18 Nov 2019
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service
— Istanbul, 13 Nov 2019 [From TMS editor: Richard was born on 13 Nov 1930]
Somehow as the sun sets
The thrill of being alive startles
Is it love alone
Or your starlit smile
The play of Istanbul
The enchantment of kediler
This thrill of life persists
Despite the world
Despite unimaginable
And hideous atrocities
We must not avert our eyes
Or escape to the suburbs of the mind
The faith of this hour
Is anxious patience
Panic prescribed as sanity
‘Thanks Greta’
Remember to observe bravery
Along the Gaza fence
Remember refugees
Human and desperate
And those killed and maimed
Because their skin is darker
Or their god(s) differ
Despite being the same
Then and only then
Succumb to flowers and maidens
Only then visit forests
To bless magical animals
While living and dying
Keep your gaze, affirm
This impossible faith
By smiles, by tears
This forever fervor
Keeping birthdays precious
To be old and engaged
Is to be truly young
To be old and enraged
Is to be truly young
To affirm the affirmable
And fight the abominable
Is to be truly young
Great fortune at 89
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Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Distinguished Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies, UCSB, author, co-author or editor of 40 books, and a speaker and activist on world affairs. In 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Falk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies, and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent book is Achieving Human Rights (2009).
Go to Original – richardfalk.wordpress.com
Tags: Poetry, Richard Falk
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