the inertia of the heavy weight of the past

will our wings burn?

this week in Detroit
workers will build our Chevy Volt,
an electric car that has touched a hopeful future
and come back to help us toward sustainability,
away from a future within which we are heedless with energy
and our wings burn as we forget ourselves and limits,
and we will lose who we could become
by being too much the lesser parts of who we are,

tomorrow in North Carolina voters judge what is a marriage,
and too many are sure that only who they are can love and last,
and, like the lesser woman to whom Solomon gave the choice,
they would cleave the baby in two
rather than let the other side have its love,

the future calls to us of hope,
the past calls to us of fear,
and with our choices we will be
either saved or cursed, found or lost,
we will either fly
or our wings will burn.

by Henry H. Walker
May 7, ’12