It seems all you do is wait.
I know what for.
As do you.
But is your imagination
bright enough to see,
loud enough to hear,
courageous enough to speak?
Do you believe you can cope?
Have you lost all hope?
Does fear hold you captive,
dim your sight,
close your ears,
silence your tongue?
Do you most hide
from lost pride,
knowing what you most fear
is already here?
Open your eyes.
un-stop your ears.
Loosen your tongue.
Resistance, too,
has already begun.
Altars of sacrifice are all around.
Candles of prayer light the ground.
Darkness recedes under great duress.
Lawyers are in full-court press.
Evil lurks and lunges until we despair;
its laughter and cheers rend the air.
Turbulent times make us all too aware
how humans carry a heavy load of fear,
how ready we are to disappear
before we lose heart
and break apart.
We are tempted to remain abed
and close our eyes against the dread
of monsters who long played dead
and hid under rocks, yet lived in our heads.
We live lives of useless malcontent
ready to blame the innocent
for acts of contrition that belong
not to the weak, but, to the strong.
Unable to admit we could be wrong,
we allow the liars to string us along.
We vote them in to replace our lost pride.
We set all reason and facts aside.
We wear red hats with slogans to hide
a weakness too fearful to abide.
When will such depravity end?
What harm done in the interim?
Soft exhales out in metered prose.
Screams trapped within a calm pose.
This is how every morning begins.
Candles relit on altars within.
Resistance alights again and again.
Another hour, another day, and then?
The garden is awash in earths tears,
unleashed by climate change fears,
carried on gusts of wind beating down
on an already soaked ground
where drenched petals now lie spent.
The sky cried for days, nothing really new.
But now she cries for others, too;
not only herself as her rhythms are torn loose.
She cries for miles of wounded souls
across America’s fields of woe
as Americans try to cope with the pain
of children ignored, wounded and slain.
Guns locked and loaded against all
who are not white men with moneyed eyes
which blind their view of progressive skies
opened to all that is bright and new;
like children who seek to grow up wise,
appreciating every new experience
as an exploration of greater happiness.
Even childlike innocence is not enough
to save the lives of little ones
when war is waged by hopeless men
preyed upon by sellers of guns
who magnify phony fears for profit
and ratings and votes.
Earth and I have come undone,
hopes dampened by clouds of tears
hiding the sun. Each child a flower
mown down, unable to run to safety.
Not one.
Not a single one.
Filed under POETRY
annarino writes 