We all think we would
Have been the good guys in that story,
That we would have refused fascism’s demands,
We think we would have had the foresight,
The readiness to do the unpopular,
Until it happens on one’s own soil,
And then one is left in one of a few camps,
Those that acquiesce,
Those that refuse,
And those that just don’t know what to do,
What to do when humans are contained like cattle
With the label illegal,
What to do when realities of an angry mother Earth means this was no fault of their own,
What to do when being a good citizen conflicts with being a good person,
What to do when the question “what do I do?” is real
and not a hypothetical “what would I do?”
But rather ”what will I do?”
Tag: History
All of Our America II
Wake up to the realization
That things are often
Not as they seem,
White picket fences
Are redlined
With a much darker history
Dark like burnt cork
Dark like the black night of masked midnight rides,
But also dark, with stars guiding
Like an underground railroad run,
Our history is our history,
We cannot cherry pick the plot,
But we can from our ends figure out how to continue the story
America was always a complex experiment,
A wild unruly flower
Largely grown from blood and tears,
And blood and tears still water her today,
It is how they are shed that
Makes the difference
Mapping a family tree
Going back centuries
Becomes a test of how much truth
One wishes to open up,
It’s a Pandora’s box of past
That leaves us staring face to face at times
With the sins of the mother and father,
Wondering how amends can be made for past wrong,
When guilt is a well that keeps dredging deeper
But our past is our past
And sometimes the good is not,
Even cannot be recorded,
And our past is still ours to handle,
We are living knee deep in it,
still collecting and paying for the past our own eyes may have never seen,
It was not our place to be there,
But rather to be here,
Being actors, witness to the present,
And reflectors on the past
Watchmen for our now,
To ensure better choices,
The best choices may be made to impact the future,
It is all connected,
And it is our responsibility,
As Americans, as world citizens, as humans,
As sentient beings to ensure we are guided wisely,
By not guilt, or raw anger,
But by complex thought
On what to do with the lessons and emotions evoked from the American past,
in this present,
It is all of our past,
It always has been,
Though history has affected all unequally,
It is our past to take on,
Our past as a present to grapple with,
In order to become closer together as a single entity,
As siblings,
Who can handle reality,
Who can allocate responsibility,
Who can be the e pluribus unum aspired to,
We are a people of all Nations,
It is remembering that which is the challenge,
And truly realizing that
This is
all of our America
Hidden Contributions
Contributions made
Pigment hidden from plain sight,
Disregard impact,
Prejudice erodes the past,
So only a lie is cast
Family DNA
DNA links us,
We are blocks
Blocks of a singularity called humanity,
Inside another grouping, inside another,
In another…
Inside of what is as a whole
life.
We relish and depend on our web
That is family,
But to a point;
Somewhere along the string of DNA,
As pieces of our ancestors get left off, we cut each other off,
We stop seeing the singularity of existence.
It does not matter if I still maintain our shared ancestor’s chromosomes,
But that we all spring from the same tree.
Perhaps we sense the absence when we meet someone who does not look familiar,
But is that not how we make friends;
Find loves;
From those that contain the familiar human qualities,
But yet seem
Different?
We are of the same tree,
Cousins all,
With DNA shared,
Even when distantly,
We are samples of the beauty
And complexity of the web
Of life,
And what we as humans call
Family.
Giving Thanks
I will be thankful,
But will also be aware,
This day is a myth
Be thankful always,
For each breath you may still take,
For what others may not
Know your history,
Not propaganda,
The ugly parts too
Shame warrants action,
Warrants accepting the truth,
Warrants giving back
Thanks and commitment,
To making amends,
No matter the guilt
This is our story,
We choose our next roles,
For that I give thanks
Our Stories
We
Have always been
Princesses and Princes.
They took, and told our stories,
Protecting royalty, and fantasy
—called it “fiction”, “faith”, and “history”
We have always been
Our own oppressors
And redeemers.
She of Letters 