Haiku (of sorts)
how are we to heal
bleeding planet gashed by hate
one heart at a time
how are we to heal
weeping planet asking love
one heart at a time
how are we to heal
reaching now to different ones
one heart at a time
Explanation, skip if too boring: I typically don’t explain what I write. The words will either stand or fall on their own, but I wanted to give a bit of background on this. First, I thought about the old parable about the grandfather telling his grandson that there are two wolves always at war inside each of us, one representing hatred and fear, the other representing love and bravery. When the grandson asks which one wins, the grandfather answers “the one you feed.” Let us feed our loving wolves. Second “one heart at a time” is an adaptation of the story from which the title of Anne Lamott’s book, Bird by Bird, derives. She describes how her brother was daunted by needing to complete a long report on birds, and her father kindly advised “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” None of us can accomplish the seemingly daunting task of healing the world alone. But we can each take it heart by heart, one heart at a time. Finally, I’ve never tried haiku before but the phrase “how are we to heal” would not leave me alone, so its five syllables was a start.
Copyright © Thomas Ward 2017
Creativity for You 
Great! Nice way to put it. I say one person or one kid at a time. But I like ❤️heart.
Btw, don’t worry about the explaining. I don’t consider that is a weakness or a disqualification😉
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Thank you. Yes..people, kids, hearts…all one at a time.
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Your words do indeed stand on their own.
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And yours mean so much to me. Thank you.
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I like both – and your haiku and the explanation. It reminds me about this story of apes when on one continent they started to eat potatoes and it appeared that short after on the other continent they did the same what apparently meant that if enough of apes (don’t know exact percentage) were doing the same the information or the energy of it spread all over and had influence on the rest.
People are the same – it’s enough that some 30% start to behave and think differently and it pushes the others into the same direction.
And of course we can only start with ourselves.
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Thank you. Wow. What an interesting idea. I want to read about that.
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I’m not sure how big was the percentage, maybe even only 10%, I’ve heard this story once but i don’t know where to find it
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Good post again, and the explanation after gives even more to it, not making it less or weaker. I just would rather delete the bold text alone ‘ Explanation, skip if too boring:’ and leaving the explanation itself there after the haiku. Just an opinion.
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Thank you so much. I agree, in retrospect, that the bold text could have been left out.
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Wonderful post Thomas. And the quote from Anne Lamott is perfect here.
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Thank so much for visiting and your kind words. I did try the bird by bird story on my son when he was having problems writing in school. It did help, a bit anyway.
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Intereesting read
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