(with apologies to Rudyard Kipling)
Oh, East was East, and West was West,
but now they’ve truly met:
For both agree that money is God and with it
they’ll Heaven beget;
Yet there’ll be neither East nor West, money,
nor place to dwell,
If fundamentalist "prophets" unleash the weapons
of hell.
So may East be East, and West be West,
but may the twain still meet;
May everyone find God within – for here’s
the Judgement Seat;
Then there’d indeed be neither War, Border,
nor Breed, nor Birth,
And two strong men could stand face to face,
though they came from the ends of the earth.
Jerusalem
5 December 1995