Focused on healing, evolution, the soul and God, focused on the end of harm.

That You Compare

No parent to you
in the chair means
that was not your cradle,
that was not your hold that baby sweetly,
that was not change his diaper,
that was not teach him to walk,
and that was not to show him the world for the first time,
and all the things in it that made him wonder and laugh
and cry when it hurt him.
You did not sooth that child
in the bottom years of his life,
those three years of Earth
when he rose into human being.
It is there we hold him
his parents say,
and you have no right there
they tell me.

Is this all that’s wrong?
I have been his parent for life.
I came in
when that boy left his toddler years,
and I formed him
into the boy he is now,
formidable years,
the ones his two front teeth came out,
and the teeth there that I had him grow back
were not mean.
They were full of spiritual impulse,
and they formed his muse,
the poetry he writes from inner house,
and that is my job with him.
He is a poet to show the world
we have to change our way with children.

We have to make it right with them.
We have to give them ourselves
so they can be themselves.
We do not own them.
God does,
and is our job to help
them discover their soul’s purpose in life,
even if that is not
where we want them in our home.

This is the parent I am
to that boy,
and even if he never sees me again,
I have parented him there,
and that is in the bowels of the Earth,
and no amount of hatred and brainwashing
on his parents’ part
can remove that from his life.

Here on social media I have not called a name,
and I have not shown a face.
I have broken no rules of engagement,
and I want the world to see what you have done to this child,
just at that point in his life,
at the very second,
the body wills into adolescence,
and you have damaged him there,
ruined him,
and you will see this bear fruit.

I’m all over this with my arm,
and I know how to heal this boy.
Please step aside
and let it be done.
Put down your jealous egos
and let me save your child
from the hells and howevers
of being a sociopath.
I cannot state it more clearly.
Now you see it,
let me heal him.

About Harm’s End

I share this blog with my best friend Douglas, but I write the poetry on it, and for about the past five years, it has been an exclusive poetry blog, that features longer poems than the zeitgeist likes that I feel are inspired by the muse of poetry, a new style of poetry I’ve developed over a lifetime that uses conversational English and symbolism to talk about the deepest things imaginable and about the shallowness of the everyday life of humanity, and to talk about myself floating between those two poles.

About Donny Lee Duke

I grew up in the suburbs of Houston, Texas and on a family farm in East Texas. At 17, I joined the army, and, after a brief time in the infantry, I traveled the Texas rodeo circuit with the last active duty horse cavalry troop and was their muleskinner. I then became a Green Beret (special forces), and in 1983 I parachuted with my A team into West Germany with a tactical nuclear device that was unarmed, but we didn’t find that out until we landed. I got out of the army when my time was up and got a BA in English and a minor in History and went on to do three years or so of post-baccalaureate work learning to translate Classical Greek. At the same time, I explored my inner life via lucid dream and out of body experience to try and see how deep, wide, and high we go inside and if we are connected in consciousness to one another. After finding my soul inside and experiencing my higher self several meters over my head and a momentary experience of enlightenment, I left normal life in 1992 and became a homeless pilgrim, first in the United States and then abroad, living in over 27 countries on four continents for about 10 years. I worked my way from country to country and had no cash, assets, or bank account, but I got a lot of help from people, especially from Douglas, my best friend of 25 years. I returned to India in 2003, where I’d always been returning to since my first trip there in ‘95, and where I now live with Douglas, my grandson Nithish, 12, who is not now with us but is returning, and our four dogs. I clean house, shop, cook and take care of Douglas, Nithish and our dogs, and I write poetry and do photography as part of my sadhana for the Yoga of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, which I have been practicing for 30 years. We live in an undisclosed location in the area of the international city of human unity, Auroville.

Image & text © Donny Lee Duke

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