Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading

In honor of the second annual blogger poetry reading I submit the following Haiku:

Knowledge

Gift to our children

Not freedom or great wealth, but

Thought to the future

And because I am feeling incredibly generous, I also pass on this poem which appeals to me on several different levels:

Dead Woman

Pablo Neruda

If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you no longer live,
I shall live on.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall live on.

For where a man has no voice,
there, my voice.

Where blacks are beaten,
I cannot be dead.
When my brothers go to prison
I shall go with them.

When victory,
not my victory,
but the great victory comes,
even though I am mute I must speak;
I shall see it come even though I am blind.

No, forgive me.
If you no longer live,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you have died,
all the leaves will fall in my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping, but
I shall stay alive,
because above all things you wanted me indomitable,
and, my love, because you know that I am not only a man
but all mankind.