or to listen, maybe while you read. You can also download  & freely share this audio

from the Truce Foundation, Poet Laureate Colin  Goedecke  & The Poetisphere.

For the people of the world, 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.

A cultural offering, presented in written, voiced & video form, at the Summer Olympic Games, at OLY House, Paris, August 2024