Tell me everything's going to be all right
Tell me the children will stop crying
and dying
Tell me indifferent faces will rotate
and smile kindness inviolate
Tell me that fields will blossom with
milk and honey enough to feed all
Tell me that hatred will burn itself
to ash and disappear from the winds
Tell me that those white doves will lift,
fly unthreatened, unassailed and high
Tell me that loved ones will never actually die
Tell me that justice for one and all does exist
Tell me that hope, oh hope alive, does persist
Tell me, Oh tell me,
that every thing is going to be all right.
That war will end, each and every at last
Tell me that the child who has turned away
will, with open arms, return, recalling the past
Tell me that each babe that is born will enjoy
a horizoned future in sparkling sight
Tell me,
Oh ...
Tell me that everything's going to be all right
Tell me that seas will return to where they belong
that forests will blossom and birds regain song
Tell me, oh tell me that the thoughts in the dark
that tear at my sleep - will calm and graze onto
Elysian fields, verdant, placid and gentle as sheep
Oh rock, me, yes calm me, buoy me high with your might
Tell me, Oh tell me, that everything's going to be alright
Wrap all your hopes, your wishes, and dreams
in shining certitude, in rhymes, in patterns of light -
Wrap me forever in poetry's shimmering vision so bright
Tell me, oh tell me in your own form and idiosyncratic insight
Tell me, oh tell me and tell the world from one corner to next
in coffee houses, or screens, in parchment, in old-fashioned text
Tell me oh poets each one, yes I call on your unified might -
Tell me, oh tell me
Tell me, that every thing is going to be ultimately all right.
Powerful ! Hits a deep core of emotion ! Fran Rosen
ReplyDelete"Tell me that everything's going to be all right" - that is the question we all wish to have answered. Beautifully expressed
ReplyDeleteTruedessa
This reminds me a bit of Langston Hughes' poem "The Dream Keeper." As I've gotten older, I've realized that some of the throwaway lines we use to comfort others really do comfort them. "It will be all right." Do we know that? Of course not, but sometimes a person just needs to hear it.
ReplyDelete