Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BROTHERHOOD, by JAMES OPPENHEIM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BROTHERHOOD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: If you want to find your brothers
Last Line: Shall dawn benign brotherhood.
Subject(s): Brotherhood; Self


IF you want to find your brothers,
Find yourself...
You are not a person; you are a race...

What we see of you is a ray of light emanating from the hidden skies within you...
In those skies humanity dwells...
Enter them; find your brothers...

You shall find infinite love:
You shall be all you see:
Communion with the grass and the sea-waves shall be no harder than with human beings...
St. Francis knew this: preaching to the birds.

Not alone in division of food and comfort,
Not alone in bare Justice (long needed, the unescapable duty of our age)
Not in these only shall Brotherhood come...

No, not until you go the ancient way;
Way of Buddha, Jesus and Isaiah,
The long long journey, farther than sun from earth,
(So near, such heavens away) to your own Soul,
Shall dawn benign Brotherhood.





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