dear spirit above and within
i am sometimes blessed and
again sadly naive'
to say again in separate words
to be blessed by not seeing
all the harms being delivered
upon many of your children-
done both with complete intent
or nearly intended neglect.
and to be cursed with being able to see
more of delivered or unstopped pain
than i care as one to see;
sense, and feel;
as does so exist.
an innocent naivete is a safe alibi
that i and we are no longer afforded.
each damn war, drought, genocide, infanticide
has a cause, and either treatment or cure;
(and when, i do not know, did it become my job, your job, our job
to apply salve and gauze and treat every wound
and feed every starving soul the planet and maybe
the "all powerful" has so in plentiful provided...)
i mean not to preach and speak above my station
and abilities to provide answers
to these my own questions...
the difference is that now we know
almost unfiltered horrible view
of the carnage; of the bent and broken;
the torn, dead, and dying.
each spirit, each heart, each soul affected
knew or knows their own pain
and can or want to ask why; why they
were chosen, fated, randomly selected
to receive the pain doled out;
sometimes at the hand of another human...
i cannot be so naive anymore, we cannot
be so naive anymore of the miseries.
the alleged progress that for some
make life so comfortable
also gives so much knowledge
of the fates of the cursed.
qassam rockets, tanks, helicopters,
rifle propelled grenades, guns, bayonets,
homemade and factory-built bombs
and after awhile all those things
become all the same to me...
and the attack victims merge with the starving
hundreds of thousands in africa;
with the quarter million tsunami dead;
with terror attacks that target no one
and everyone in some strangely selected
location.
small rogue militias, solitary suicide attackers,
masses of military might, seemingly unnatural
acts of nature merge with their victims;
but the difference is that we see it now and know.
at some time young, though not too young
i saw just the raw footage of piles of lifeless bodies
in black and white
of the nazi death camps, over seas in the army
i saw briefly two empty camps, left as monuments
to the murdered and as silent reminders
of our near infinite ability to commit inhumane
acts upon our fellow humanity.
these evil things that people do
cannot be sanctioned by this spirit
of which I first spoke,
perhaps known by different names;
i ask not that spirit's name
for even if i knew, would be beyond
my own simple understanding.
of those events of nature
i ask not why; merely hope
humanity can marshal
the best we have assembled
to ease the suffering as best we can...
and the difference is that now we know
and i and we cannot claim we do not know
what has and would continue to happen.
i care not so much your colour, your faith,
or your political view; i know my reality
and cannot know completely yours.
what i know is that we now know better;
that we can at least feed the hungry,
rebuild what humans built after nature
has swept our first constructions away,
can choose to stop violences
one incident at a time if we can learn
only enough to accept each our differences
and celebrate our commonalities...
oh and with all this and that said
i know still i have my own fashion of naivete
that together a better world can be built
and perhaps i singularly shout
into the blowing winds of torment
but my own silence
would deafen and close me...
poetpj 130536 25 july 05