The Difference Between Judgment and Aid
The council meets, all hours, to hear old batty dames yell, what a *****,
we don't think she's a good person, because she doesn't look and act like us.
The soldier's hall considers, is it fair to wage war on a witch?
She isn't supposed to take up arms, isn't supposed to think about war.
But you, cry in my arms and say, "I wish to be loved, why won't some girl
like me? I'm too fat", you say, and all I can offer is take a walk, eat less.
The mother's brigade is unhappy they have their blessed babes pushed in carriages
and shun the woman unable to have children, just offering to baby sit.
The father's brigade is unhappy to be stuck with the bills or to have a walkout wife
and shun any woman who demands her rights to have opinions and money.
But you, tell me of your lack of money, to eat, to drive, to visit friends
so I send money and delight in the happy tales of movies and dining.
I look across the pattern of life and find the dips and downtrodden and say,
what about artificial families, people who sit with our kids and lunch and help homework?
Cursed be you, you say, you have no children, you offer no aid, and steal
this poem, passing it friend to friend and say, what do you think?
Will it help our children gain confidence to have another adult listen?
Will it help those with no parent to have and adult praise and question?
Is it my age I ask and the answer is yes, this is an age of all too opinionated
people failing to listen to the wind, to the silence, to the dreams, to the crying
taking asking looks at their neighbor saying am I keeping up, has that other
person got ahead? I'll not help them because they aren't needy enough
to offer guidance to those who have no time to look beneath beds, look
beneath the society, beneath the judge's bench and find the better way.
The silent one has taken away the light from your world, taken the song away
from the sorrowing, taken the whip from the brutes, and walked away.
She has a life, she has needs to find out more of the truth of reality
she doesn't like the people she sees always sitting in judgement and never listening
to the wind, the truth, to justice, to the downtrodden, to the lonely, to the unforgiven,
to the beaten, the one that finds her mind her best hidden asset you won't accept.
Copyright © Sheri Fresonke Harper | Year Posted 2013
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