The signs are all around The lessons before us: Something so small That we cannot see it Has brought the mightiest nations Of the world With their mighty nuclear ships and missiles To their mighty knees. Buddha was right Life is suffering So be warned And search for Nirvana Confucius wanted us To revere our parents and ancestors And Lao Tzu Taught us to befriend nature Allow time to unfold with its own rhythm Learn the art of drinking tea And gently walk in bamboo forests In silence To find the Dao Lord Ram showed us The path of righteousness Marked by calls for Shanti, peace And the great Guru of the Punjab Taught humility and service to all Moses gave us the ten commandments And Jesus wanted us to love one another Muhammad embraced both East and West He taught us To balance matter and spirit To strive for justice To care for the poor And above all to seek knowledge He asked us to wash our hands five times a day Cover our faces And greet each other with our hands on our hearts And he reminded us that Abraham taught obedience And the virtue of being alone These religions are like spokes in a wheel All connecting to the same central point These luminous names Are our shared human heritage They give us hope While reminding us Of our common humanity And vulnerability God walks alongside us As close to us as our jugular vein. But how many of us have learnt Any lessons from the coronavirus scourge? Nations still threaten to crush weaker nations And minorities have become The virus The enemy within. Leaders still strut about like Pharaoh Their arrogance unabated Their greed and selfishness on display The harm they have caused the planet Is killing us as well as all God’s creation Their list of crimes is long: Massive pollution of the air, earth and seas With the use of dangerous chemicals Fertilizers, insecticides, hospital waste And plastic that is not degradable We have Annihilated too many species of the natural world. But we are equal opportunity killers Though the mind numbed with grief and tears Cannot even compute the crimes against The millions of children and refugees Killed and forever displaced. The planet needs air to breathe, Time to heal its wounds Inflicted by us. We quiver in panic and fear Before the deadly virus As we desperately hunt for a vaccine Open your eyes and hearts My friends And you will see that Everything in this universe is gloriously suffused With the Divine attributes Of Compassion and Mercy. Washington DC 16 April, 2020