Teardrop
I
ask
you to
mind our
earth, heed
our existence
upon it, care for
our lives and all that
will occur if we cannot
consider beyond ourselves,
if we are guided by uncertainty,
when we fear the unknown, when we
shun those who differ from us in skin color,
in sex, in persuasion, if we turn our eyes away,
when we dance upon the hidden strings of politicians
or cunning puppetmasters, when we swallow the lust of war,
when poets languish in isolation, without ear or encouragement,
when we torture, when prejudice blinds us to the humanity of another,
when our deluded misconceptions will go public with ready trigger finger,
when we mistake violence for the solution, when we fail the worthy person,
when we won't bother to look past the wheelchair and to whom he really is,
to say his real name, when the most expected thing we will share with him
is discrimination, when we forget that here in space we are in this together,
when tomorrow is the day that old and young will die in roaring explosions,
in quiet corners without notice, when people are driven from their homes,
when women must live in fear, when we steal identities, when evil hides
in anonymity, when we rest in apathy, indifferent to the pain of others,
when our fellow creatures are in chains for our profit and amusement,
when hunger and hatred are accepted, when malice shrieks loud,
when we cut baby girls due to generational gender inequality,
from psychosexual ignorance and hard superstition;
when we deny justice to one lonely voice,
our world falls, stretching itself
into a teardrop.
December 26, 2016
For FJ Thomas's contest - 'Concrete Crush'
Copyright © Doug Vinson | Year Posted 2016
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