The walk today around the ponds
did little to cool the heated exchange
of contrary thoughts within my brain.
Backlash I expected
when Obama was elected,
when coal and oil fell below
solar panels and wind towers,
when colorful skin hues
crossed more borders,
when gender bended far and wide,
when the Greatest Generation
was buried away from memory,
when veterans returned
poisoned by water with lungs burned,
when shuttered factories
shattered lives and families,
when supply chains carried
cheapest goods at higher prices,
when taxes went uncollected
from the richest and best protected,
when democracy was no longer taught
in schools where bullets flew.
All this I knew.
All this I expected.
All this.
All this is nothing new.
Backlash always happens.
But in the past, it was opposed
not embraced.
Haters were kept in place,
not elected and allowed to lead
insurrections and traitorous rejection
of the Constitution of these United States.
Senators orated and coordinated
across party lines
to stop the attacks on nation
and govern in motions
meant to save the country
with never a notion
to use the hate to gain control
of power and wealth
while the nation died.
Death was a line parties refused to cross.
Now, death is tool to retain control.
I seek life in the ponds, in the trees,
along paths still unseen
in a future confronting
humankind’s utter destruction.
The haters’ last gasps
must not become our own.
annarino writes 