Where is our humanity?
Where is our compassion?
For which homeless brother on the street do we sympathize?

Instead we avert our eyes.
Tilt our heads downward,
Shuffle our feet a little quicker.

Then we wrap ourselves in cocoons of sameness.
Facebook friends who think like us.
Who fear like us.
Who feel like us.

We fear the other,
Think ourselves better,
More refined,
More intelligent.
Right.

All the while forgetting we are cut of the same cloth,
Made by the same God.
Created perfect in His image.

We forget ourselves.
Our DNA--99.5 percent alike.
Genetically, we are a mere .5 percent different.

.005 difference.

But we could not be more apart.
Our worlds,
So immeasurably at odds,
And nary a bridge to mend the divide.

Us against them.

Where is our humanity?
When did we lose it?
Down which rabbit hole did it fall?

Why do we not cry for the downtrodden, the oppressed?

Why do we not cry for those who oppress?
For their loss?

Why do we not help them?

Why do we, instead--
Hate them
Disdain them
Disrespect them
Disregard them

?

Where is our humanity?

A world of darkness will enshroud us all.
Chaos will envelop us,
We will be blind,
Mad.

The televisions will drone on with their incessant hum and vibrant *******,
Fifty shades of whatever you please.
Anything but
Truth.

Those in power will try to calm us,
Placate our revolting senses.
We will not give in,
We will molt and shed our submissive skins.

We will demand recounts and claim stuffed ballot boxes.
Our minds will empty and our hearts will harden.
We will not hear.
We will not listen.

Deaf.
Our pleas for our raw and croaking voices to be heard will be ignored.
While we may vastly outnumber our oppressors,
We are but knives and pitchforks,
And they are gunpowder and cannons.

So go to the polls today, you feverish fiend.
Voice your vociferous opinion.
Do what you need to settle the turmoil within.
Calm the nightmares of your sins.

Because tomorrow--

The world ends.

Sports:

Forever the common denominator
-----------------------------------------------
Of the American Spirit

As I walk,
Brown husks crunch beneath my busied mind.
I see subtle irony in the carnage that change leaves behind,
Even as I smile in awe at the vibrant treasure trove of colors before me.

A smattering of hues flatters my sight
I turn slowly--
Needing only to reach up
And pluck that upon which I choose to alight.

We admire the foliage as it turns,
Until its belly is fully exposed and we are left disgusted.

When I go, I too shall leave behind a withered,
Hollow skin.

Lie with me, Mother Earth.
Let me feel your soiled-entombed secrets
Beneath my skin.

Lie with me, Mother Earth.
Let me feel your carpeted tendrils touch me lightly
With the breeze.

Lie with me, Mother Earth.
Divulge unto me your mysterious ways of being
Let me feel your truth on my tongue.

Lie with me, Mother Earth,
Let me admire the azure skies and sprightly sun
Show me how to see.

Lie with me, Mother Earth,
And free my soul from this living tomb
Let me be expansive and limitless.

Emancipate your sons and daughters, Mother Earth--
Rip from them their blindness
Open their eyes and unshackle their souls.

Release your unrepentant beauty and rage,
Mother Earth.

For you alone are the spectre that lets us be.

Sweetly saying sounds so soft
She sings so secretly simple songs
Soothing silence's savage sting
Shattering suspicions
Swallowing shadows
Severing stillness
So softly
So slowly
She serenades scared souls still sleeping so sound
Sunlight shall shine
Soon so soon
Splashing so swiftly
Submerging still slumber
So sleep
Sweet souls
Sleep softly, sleep safe
Sunlight shall shine
Soon
So soon.
|b.g.|