The term beatitude comes from the Latin noun beātitūdō which means happiness or blessedness. In Christian theology the Beatitudes are eight blessings that echo the ideals of mercy, spirituality, and compassion. Third Place Poetry winner in Bacopa Literary Review 2014, Jonathan Travelstead, has mercifully blessed us with a view of earth from an astronaut's perspective, where we see Beatitudes / scrawled in the mountaintops, where heartaches look beautiful and even war looks like a lover's quarrel.
What the Astronaut Said
From a distance the world looks blue and green--Julie Gold
Goodbye, blue jaw-breaker.
From up/down here
your heartaches look beautiful.
Bodies pendulous from trees,
ripe as grapes.
Mirrored banks aching towards heaven.
Even war looks like a lover's quarrel,
two opposing bodies
twittering little red lights
across the ocean
while the sun like a fat kid
hides behind a billiard ball.
From this distance
I see Beatitudes
scrawled in the mountaintops:
You own nothing. Leave only footprints.
Now a fugitive to this petty world,
how could I return to it?
Goodbye, sea monkeys
in a blue sandwich bag.
Goodbye, fear of abandonment
and anger issues.
There is no economy here
and it's so quiet
I'm getting to know myself better.
Wish you were here.
