Amanda Gorman poem read to the UN Assembly September 20, 2022

An Ode We Owe
(first read to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept 20, 2022):

How can I ask you to do good,

When we’ve barely withstood

Our greatest threats yet:

The depths of death, despair and disparity,

Atrocities across cities, towns & countries,

Lives lost, climactic costs.

Exhausted, angered, we are endangered,

Not because of our numbers,

But because of our numbness. We’re strangers

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The Lost Generation Poem (watch to the end)

The Lost Generation Poem - Read forward and backwards.

Hymn For The Hurting

A poem by Amanda Gorman:

Hymn For The Hurting

Everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed and strange,
Minds made muddied and mute
We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.
And yet none of it is new;
We knew it as home,
As horror,
As heritage.
Even our children
Cannot be children,
Cannot be.

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Dreams are renewable… (inspirational quotation)

Here is today’s inspirational quote on peace:

Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.

~Dale E. Turner

New Year’s Poem: New Day’s Lyric

New Day’s Lyric
Amanda Gorman end-of-year poem

May this be the day

We come together.

Mourning, we come to mend,

Withered, we come to weather,

Turn, we come to tend,

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The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond. Read more

Maya Angelou: His Day is Done Tribute

Beautiful tribute to Nelson Mandela by  Maya Angelou read by Botlhale Boikanyo.

And So We Must Remember (peace poem)

And So We Must Remember

My little boy wandered up to me
And asked to go for a walk,
And while we strolled hand in hand,
He asked me if we could talk.

He asked me what Remembrance meant
On this day we celebrate;
That at school they’d marched, had two minutes of silence,
But that he just couldn’t relate.

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Chasms: by Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes (peace poem)

From the TED.com YouTube channel: Writer and activist Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes lights up the stage with a powerful poem about hope, truth and the space between who we are and who we want to be.

I Bargained With Life for a Penny (peace poem)

A short and poignant poem by Jessie B. Rittenhouse that appeared in Napolean Hill’s classic book, Think and Grow Rich.

I Bargained With Life for a Penny

I bargained with Life for a penny,

And Life would pay no more,

However I begged at evening

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