From 99 words for Ellen

You have breath for no more than 99 words .
What would they be ?
Here is a response from Scilla Elworthy peace and human rights trust founder Oxford Research Group and Peace Direct

If I look back I see

that fear lies to me.

"You'll fail," it said to me when I started out on the path.

"Here's how ," painting detailed pictures of pain.

When I was on the way fear scared me again and again .

"Too weak ,too old , turn back."

I did walk on ,encumbered by this load.

It wasn't easy,

but it wasn't what I'd been told.

I didn't fail.

Without the load I might have stumbled less.

The trick is to hear

when it is fear speaking

and hear it fast enough to let it drop. 

News from Paradise---it is soon over

Report To Wordsworth’ by Boey Kim Cheng


You should be here, Nature has need of you.

She has been laid waste. Smothered by the smog,

the flowers are mute, and the birds are few

in a sky slowing like a dying clock.

All hopes of Proteus rising from the sea

have sunk; he is entombed in the waste

we dump. Triton’s notes struggle to be free,

his famous horns are choked, his eyes are dazed,

and Neptune lies helpless as beached as a whale,

while insatiate man moves in for the kill.

Poetry and piety have begun to fail,

As Nature’s mighty heart is lying still.

O see the widening in the sky,

God is labouring to utter his last cry.

from a poem by Ben Okri

Tomorrow's music sleeps
In our fingers,
In our awakening souls,
The blossom of our spirit,
The suggestive buds of our hearts.
Tell everyone the idea
Is to function together,
As good musicians would
In undefined future orchestras.
Let the energy of commerce flow.
Let the vision of art heal.
Technology, provide the tools.
Workers of the world
Re-make the world
Under the guidance of inspiration
And wise laws.
Create the beautiful music
Our innermost happiness suggests.
Delight the future.
Create happy outcomes.
And while Autumn dallies
With the West wind
And the weeping nightingales
And while Winter clears its sonorous throat
At the Antipodean banquets
Preparing for a speech of hoarfrost
And icicles conjured from living breath,
I want you to tell everyone
Through trumpets played with
The fragrance of roses
That a mysterious reason
Has brought us all together,
Here, now, under the all-seeing eye of the sun.

© Ben Okri, December