BEING TRUCEFUL | for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games
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an omnipoetic cultural contribution calling people everywhere, individually to collectively, to places of trucefulness.
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made as poet laureate of the Truce Foundation. a unique poetic offering. around the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. emanating the spirit of the ancient Olympic Truce. From a lead piece, Being Truceful, a call to all, far and wide; one infused with universally resonant, transcendent sound. to poem-awards to chosen Truce-Bearers … including the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and an Olympic Marathon Champion.
or listen to the audio …
or read the piece …
from The Truce Foundation, Poet Laureate Colin Goedecke & The Poetisphere
~ for the world
BEING TRUCEFUL
a call for trucefulness
Today.
I’m pausing.
And choosing.
To break through
wherever I’m hostile
to however
I can be peaceful.
In my home.
My neighborhood.
My country.
To break away
from allowing harm,
to seeking calm
in this world
I belong to.
Take my best spirit
out beyond the bounds
of these Olympic places
of sport and spectating,
history and glory.
Today.
So safe passages
can open. Open wide.
Everywhere I go.
And everywhere others go.
Other men and women,
parents, children,
friends and families,
elders, strangers.
For us to gladly meet
and freely talk.
So we can share
our whole selves;
our deeper truths,
our common bonds;
without holding back,
or feeling afraid.
So an air of peacefulness
can fill our days, and minds.
And great flames of kindness,
toward each other
and our living Earth
can be fed.
Can be kindled.
And, like torches, be held,
and upheld,
by me, by many;
maybe by all in time.
To light the way.
Like the athletes
who inspire us. The Olympians
who brave the steepest challenges,
flow beyond their doubts
and fears, and rise
to such expansive places.
And strive alongside others
in a spirit of solidarity.
The way we, too, within
each opening, can create
a heartful unity;
can find, feel and
help our humanity flower
and flourish.
Today.
Let me begin
to be truceful
In how I talk,
listen, act.
Let me soften
my belligerence,
indifference,
separateness.
Become a face of truce.
One that reflects the hopes
of billions for a good life,
a desire we all share.
Whose language of
friendliness
is welcome
and understood
in every heart and gut,
village and city.
I’m answering this call.
Will you join me.
Because the chance for truce
is in our hands.
Because we can make spaces
for truce to live, and thrive,
inside and around us.
Make choices
that bring us back
to our wholeness.
Empower us
to come to awareness
we are only one
expression,
one weave
of infinite weaves,
in the fabric
of this wild and
precious Earth
we are all graced
to be part of.
This Earth
you and
I can love,
and serve;
respect
instead of ravage.
And can breathe, breathe
in great harmony with.
And with each other.
Every one of us.
Every day.
The way all other living things do.
“Being Truceful”
a cultural contribution
in written, voiced & video form
by Colin Goedecke, Poetorialist,
Poet Laureate of the Truce Foundation
& Guiding Spirit of The Poetisphere
to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games
& the people of the world