HAMMERS OF COMPASSION

Out of the darkness, we are pressed by thoughts
     of survival, and hold to the whisper
of conscience, in a bed of the ages' frost.
     But the world seems undisturbed by signs that stir,
     Though the dawn's forgotten dream shows the horror
                       of oblivion.

And the fires of conscience begin to thaw
     the frost of apathies, though yet the din
of cities cannot tell the horrors or cost,
     The frost is reborn in the angers of law,
     But compassion has shrived me, and I saw
                        oblivion.

Now let the hammers of compassion chime
     as before the sleeping terror awakes,
and disarm its hatreds, or the world is lost
     or the cry in the dust and the darkness breaks-
For the breath, oh love, defend unending time
From the end's un-souled, un-beautiful crime
                        of oblivion.

by Sachio Ko-Yin, 1998