Death Dances

Death dances on black and white keys

Like the long pale fingers of a hooded player

Forming a seductive river full of the sounds

Of fear deader than the rock.

It comes suddenly from unknown streets.

A miss directed shot of vengeance strikes

The child at play and shatters a family's peace.

A raging madman hurling his hatred

At a helpless victim in a darkened alley

Ends a lifetime of fear.

The gangs stalk each other in the allies

And on international playing fields,

One on the local news and the other

In living color on World News Tonight.

"Two bodies, apparently gang members

Were found in South Central L.A. this morning.

They were shot execution style."

"On the international scene, seven

Civilians were killed when two Tomahawk

Missiles went astray during a U.S. attack

On intelligence headquarters in Iraq.

The President said the mission was

A reprisal for the attempt on

Ex-Presidents life earlier this year."

Beneath the hood the mysterious eyes shine,

Under the robe a fine silk suit covers

The decaying flesh of this dark figure

Who plays a rhythm we all dance to.

It creeps into the hearts of children.

You can hear it's tune when being right

Becomes more important than loving

And forgiving becomes the foolish

Babble of the coward.

Even worse than the death that comes

From the smashed body as its blood pours

Out into the cold street,

Is the hardened heart.

In the slow death of aliveness

We believe our lies more than our experience,

We consume our compassion and trap

Our spirits in a narrow ever shrinking

Hallway that leads down to nowhere,

And though we don't know it as we crawl,

We pass through the dome of the stars and galaxies

You can see on a clear mountain night.

The circling cadence of the black

And white keys echo through our world

Tonight with cords repeating themselves

Like thunder rolling through the valley's

and frightening sleeping children.

Louder each day the rattle drowns out

The gentle sound of our children's love

And our soul's soft song like a wooden flute

Is lost in a violent piano concerto.

It lifts us off our feet

Like the sudden blast of a car bomb

That throws innocent flesh against stonewalls,

And shakes the foundations of mighty buildings

and the people working high in its towers.

And beneath all the explosions,

Even in the heart of the dark players,

Waits the force that drives flower

To climb up out of the damp soil

And the moon to circle and shimmer

As it catches light spilling over

The edge of the Earth.

From the mountain top you

Barely hear the rumble nor see

The people falling into the dark rivers.

From the moon only the beauty

Of this blue and green sphere

Highlighted by white is visible

As it rises each night filling the horizon.

Thousands of artists, poets and priests

Mothers, fathers and the people next door

Paint windows of beauty and wonder.

With there crafts and lives they point to heaven.

Look, look a mother gently feeds a new born child,

The sun fills the forest with golden light

And a child's eyes speak of wisdom.

Look, look, see, feel and hear the other music

As choirs sing of bliss, monks chant of peace

And Thomas Jefferson writes,

"All men are created equal."

A nation is born, a life is transformed.

Its happening around you each day.

Look, look, see feel and hear,

Philosophers seek the path to freedom,

Men and women take a stand each

Day for love and compassion in their

Homes and teachers inspire vision.

Gandhi, King, Christ, Buddha and thousands

Of unknown profits sing a song of joy.

Awaken from the nightmare this morning

And know the rising darkness flows only

In a small crevasse in the mighty canyon.

The cluster of fear and anger

Is so small as it spins through the infinite,

Hardly noticeable, unless you are buried in it.

Lift your head above the dark river,

Breathe the crystal air,

Tend the garden opening to the sun

Inside your heart and feed yourself

With the bigger reality.

Drink each day of the "Flow of Heaven"

Before the dark water's flood drowns your soul

And the dirge of black and white player

Has us all dancing to death's concerto.

Take a stand for love and compassion!

Take a stand now; take a stand each moment,

Each day as you weave your life with others

And build a home for our children's children

And all living begins to come.

Paul David Walker

July 4, 1993