Races

(Note: This poem was written shortly after the 2022 Olympics and after Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos rode their rockets in a new space race for billionaires.) Races By Mark D. Stucky Our country had a Space race to beat Russians to the moon. Decades ago, we left lunar footprints and brought back rocks and selfies. Rival billionaires build rockets now for suborbital joyrides above. We periodically join Olympic races to go fractionally faster than others for prestige and multi-metal medals. Hosting countries spend billions to applaud athletic bodies. But for all that cash and hype, we get no cure-for-cancer hope, but viral spread and doping. Our world needs better races toward things that truly matter. We require a Race race to travel much faster toward equity and healing than ever gone before. While we wish for a quick sprint, a marathon is what we’re running. Ending slavery long ago, this race’s qualifying heat, was just one stride beyond the starting line. Jim Crow still taints the track. Systems still are prejudicial. Supremacists still conspire. Voting rights still are suppressed. Vigilantes still chase and shoot. Police still harm the unarmed. This crucial marathon has many miles to go, but if we struggle to the end, contenders might all be winners. (Originally published in Small Town Anthology VIII: Entries from the Eighth Annual Tournament of Writers, Vicksburg Cultural Arts Center, 2022. See also my poems "Closed Community Prejudice (an Alphabetized Memoir)," "Weapons of Wonder," and "Hate Vacuuming?") (Image by Braden Collum on Unsplash.com.)