Prayer of the Almond Tree | By Karletta Marie | Inspiring Story #145

Wake up, the hillside sings
a song of eternal hope
Lay down your guns
Embrace your cousins
For you are one human family

Look upon the almond tree
First to blossom, last to fruit
Same wish, different species
Sharing bees, passing seed
With promise of prosperity

Purplish twigs call gnarly trunks
You in charge, go beat yourselves
Leave the young run
among the orchards
Where harmony dwells

Crimson hearts burst, petals fall
Not by bomb or bullet
But by love’s gust, a tender rush
Blood-stained earth now awash
in honey-scented snow

 
Images of hate fill our screens. Faces of the wounded haunt our feeds. Both sides, all sides. Not just war with weapons, but a silent war carried out against we the people.

We, the people, pawns played like pieces on a chessboard. How long will we listen to judges who sit behind mahogany desks? White wigs making mandates they themselves are not required to abide by. Leaders hide behind security guards, sending young boys and girls into war, while helicopters wait at the door, ready to carry their sons and daughters away from danger. Clergy  elders who whip their congregations, breaking backs with words and laws laced with poisonous guilt. While paedophiles run rampant, through pews, without disgrace, just a slap on the hand, a kiss on the face.

Corporate oligarchs playing with money made from people’s suffering; sugar barons, billionaire bankers, water bottlers, space invaders, big pharma, vaccine makers, propaganda creators, tax trickers, with no responsibility to we the people.

I’m tired of this old way. Where we listen to liars who sit in high places, where fakery is revered, and the innocent young die for what? For whom?

It’s time for a new way, a new heart for planet earth. While war breaks out, Spring brings forth a sacred symbol of peace, new life, and eternal hope. Out of a dark wet winter, almond blossoms burst, reaching out to heaven. Pink to the east, white to the west. Different varieties grow close as companions in the hope of cross pollination.

Together they send out one honey-scented song, beckoning bees to carry pollen from pink blossom to white. One orchard, depending on the other across the way. Bees, different trees, all work in harmony for the benefit of each other. United, they produce velvety skinned drupes. The sweet fruit of their labour. And we, the people, eat.

Among eight billion people, surely there’s more than a ten million women and men with hearts of incorruptible love and service to others. Raise your hands, lovers of justice and truth. Let us run to the orchards and take notes. We’ll sit under the branches, raise our heads to the sky in the presence of the Divine and call for answers. We’ll sing the Prayer of the Almond Tree; we’ll call for change and gather in new ways, for a new age where light and peace remain our eternal hope.