Kaleidoscope
by Michael Doyle

India offers her vast diversity
Simply put, a wealth of complexity
Filled with peace within her kaleidoscope
As harmonious coexistence offers hope

Slumdog lords are opulent in a history
Of a people struggling with poverty
Pluralistic in a free market democracy
As a metaphor lived in tolerant multiethnicity

Three hundred languages asking to give peace a chance
Absorbed and integrated into Shiva's dance
The forests of Gaya provided their noble truth
And Siddartha's kinship live it from their youth

Right knowledge and conduct lead to right belief
Where surrendering attachments releases from grief
There is the recognition that each soul has equal weight
And higher love will always be greater than hate

Some choose not alignment but to choose respect
Setting their sights on something higher than neglect
Then that which would be rejected for sake of creation
And bare the heart that is the soul of India's nation

Picked clean of impurity in towers of silence
So many having learned that goodness rejects violence
A heritage built strong from Aryan forefathers' tradition
And renewing itself in each age's newest edition

Regardless of selection of the deepest devotion
Each festival offers its colors within emotion
There in India's network of rare reciprocity 
Is the needed tolerance of spiritual integrity

Holi bonfires inspire a powdered celebration
Far and wide across the breadth of the India nation
Reborn within the sparks from holy fires
Until with charity and love their understanding inspires

Love of mankind as brother, sister and true friend
Cyclically progressing and yet never reaching end
The world it seems is one that keeping on turning
Wishing only that mankind was just as ever learning

(c) August 15, 2021  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved