Since the publishing of my last book, “Awakening A Leader’s Soul: Learnings Through Immortal Poems,” scores of people have asked me the reasons why I decided to build a bridge between poetry and leadership.

Two main reasons:

• I firmly believed then, as I do now, that to develop more evolved leaders and leadership we need new teachers.
• And because poets stand tallest among all teachers in consistently helping us make sense of ourselves, our world, and our place in it in new and insightful ways.

Today, our world is shaken and shattered by several adversities – a raging global pandemic, crushing racial and civil unrest, and deep economic misery.

If ever there was a time to invite the wisdom of immortal poems to help us make sense of our world and our place in it, it is now.

So you can imagine my joy when Joe Biden quoted Seamus Heaney, the Irish Nobel Prize Winning Poet, during his acceptance speech last night. I’m glad he didn’t use his own or his speechwriter’s words.

The lines Biden quoted are from a section of one of Heaney’s most celebrated poems, “The Cure At Troy.”

History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

The question that people around the world are asking, especially in USA since the Presidential Elections are around the corner – Will hope and history rhyme? Millions around the world desperately want to hear that rhyme and wake to a new dawn.

Seamus Heaney must have anticipated this question, because his next few lines provide the answer:

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

I’m with Seamus. Let’s believe in miracles. Let’s believe in cures and healing wells. Infinitely better than the hateful violence born from grievances and revenge that has become the anthem of today’s troubled times.