Every culture
Every person
Knows beauty
In their own way
I remind myself
Try to find
Beauty’s heart
In every way
That is the place
Where we are all one
That is the place
From which flows love
Every culture
Every person
Knows beauty
In their own way
I remind myself
Try to find
Beauty’s heart
In every way
That is the place
Where we are all one
That is the place
From which flows love
Nonetheless, they should come
This is not a place for those
Who dislike the crush of a crowd
Who want a fresh coat of paint
Or a breath of fresh air
Nonetheless, they should come
This is not a place for those who believe
That people’s conditions reflect their choices
That there is one right way to live
Or one way to think
Nonetheless, come
This is not the place for them
Because their cherished values
Will be confronted
Every moment of every day
And that is why
You should come
Because this scene is neither
Remarkable nor unusual
It is mundane
Everyday
Most of the world’s people
Your brothers and sisters
Live out their lives
In scenes like this one
Or what you would consider to be
Much much worse
Scenes which appear
Dirty
Unkempt
Dilapidated
But if you don’t come
If you don’t spend quality time
With your human family
In their homes
You may never learn
The true beauty of this scene
And all the people in it
Nonetheless, they deserve better
From those of us
Who assume we have better
Because we are better
In no small measure
We have better
Because we’ve bettered them
But are superior in no other way
Than an accident of natal geography
It’s easier to see that
If you come
So if you are enabled
By conditions of privilege
To travel internationally
Privilege built in part on their poverty
You should come
Yet… perhaps no greater love for this moment
Whether it seem strange or familiar
Than mine
I peer into their world
Try to understand what they see
How they see it
It helps me see
The nuance in my own world
In my own perception
Every now and again
I notice people
Peering back at me
A moment most illuminating
As it reminds me
Look at yourself, through their eyes
And so, I wonder
What do they see?
How do they see me?
But changed have I
Beyond a scope
I can explain
No people of
This world the same
Yet all alike
In ways I’ve seen
Which never learned
From books or schools
But only when
I took the road
And spanned the gap
In time and place
To meet them in
The worlds they’ve made
Sat at their hearth
And listened, then
All the many ways we use them
All the many ways they come to me
All the many ways they coalesce
Promoting insight
Undermining ignorance
Evoking feeling
Forming meaning
Hero
A word of nuance
Of many meanings
Of differences
Subtle and grave
Intricate details
Inlaid in stone walls
Indicate a beauty
And subtlety
Beckoning exploration
And then it does
But only for a moment
Until something else
Pulls it away
In this visual cacophony
Of a culture traveler’s feast
A colourful picture
Beautiful
But the focus
Is a little short
The rickshaws
Are sharp
But the people
Are not
An anachronism
A paradox
To a Westerner
Like me