Introduction by Thich Nhat Hanh
" I have a poem for you. This poem is about 3 of us.
The first is a 12 year old girl, one of the boat people crossing the gulf of Siam. She was raped by a sea pirate and after that, she threw herself in the sea. The second is a sea pirate who was born in a remote village in Thailand, and the third person was me.
I was not on the boat. I was tens of thousands of miles away, but because I was mindful, I knew what was going on in the gulf. I was very angry of course, but I could not take sides against the sea pirate. If I could have, it would have been easier, but I couldn't. I realised, that if I had been born in this village, and had lived a similar life, economic, educational and so on, it is likely that I would now be that sea pirate. So it is not easy to take sides.
Out of suffering, I wrote this poem, It is called ,
"Please Call Me by My True Names",
because I have many names,
and when you call me by any of them,
I have to say " Yes".
"Do not say that I will depart tomorrow,
Because even today, I still arrive.
Look deeply, I arrive on every second,
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird whose wings are still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and hope,
the rhythm of my heart
is the birth and death of all that are alive.
I am the May fly, metamorphosing
on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird, which when spring comes,
arrives in time to eat the May fly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond,
and I am also the grass snake,
approaching in silence, who feeds upon the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
I am the twelve year old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean,
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart yet not capable of seeing and loving.
I am the member of the Politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man, who has to pay a debt of blood to my people, dying slowly in a forced labour camp.
My joy is like a spring, so warm, it makes flowers bloom.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so full, it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
So I can hear all my cries and
my laughs at once. So I can see that
my joy and pain are but one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
The door of compassion."
Thich Nhat Hanh
