How could we ever love everyone:
Thieves, profiteers, liars and drones,
Wicked geniuses,
And the tide of murderous zealots?

But, how then can we not?
How can one not finally feel affection for them all,
All of these brain-damaged back-ward denizens
Overflowing this vast insane asylum of mundane existence?

After all, how could they not be
Just the teeming hordes of past-life
Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons,
Wives and husbands, sisters and lovers?

How could they not be
Just the endless, crushing crowd of former intimates,
Disguised now in rags of anger and lust,
Empty bowls in hand, begging for the pill of pleasure,

That magic little pill,
Banishing pain for merely a moment
From the feverish plague
Of karma-bound suffering?

Used by permission