feel others' sorrows as your own

too many hurt

racism, sexism, misogyny,

fear of the other,

a retreat into the tribal,

a retreat to those like us, near us,

for we have a need to feel of worth

and those like us reassure us,

and those not like us 

help us to know who we are

because we’re not like them,

many of us are reeling now from those dark currents,

I know and love enough people of color,

enough Muslims, enough gay and lesbians, enough women,

that they are part of my tribe,

and I can hurt as they hurt,

Gandhi believed that 

“the real lovers of God 

feel others’ sorrows as their own,”

I also grew up in a “fly-over” state, Tennessee, 

with working class folks, for whom college was not a given,

who lived for football and NASCAR,

Dolly and Dollywood surely worth time and the price of a ticket,

for each speaks true to who they are,

the streets of Gatlinburg a comfort, not an affront,

these are folks who I think often work harder than any on Wall Street

and receive compensation for their work

insulting in how little society values their sweat,

the pain within body and soul that their work can demand,

and they can feel the ridicule and contempt that elites have for them,

the lack of concern that monied interests have for them,

those who manipulate government and trade as a way to fill their own pockets,

look at any map of red and blue states from the last election,

the great expanse of America between the two coasts is red,

as is every part of America that is rural and small town,

the coasts are mostly blue,

I heard a comment that many who live in New York and Boston

travel to Paris but rarely to the Heartland,

they can love the people as a group but not as individuals,

I know the economy of Gatlinburg, TN, and so did Karl Marx,

those who work, and work hard,

are paid barely enough to get by, if that,

while the few live in luxury and own the land, the economy,

I once told a Presidential candidate, to his face,

that he should live on minimum wage for a month:

no food, no entertainment, no health care, no gas for the car

that minimum wage won’t pay for,

and I got nowhere with him,

I love New York based shows

but I increasingly hear the ridicule within their humor,

how can we dismiss the tribalism those flown-over can feel and act upon,

and not realize that they have been dismissed 

and easily can slip into dismissing when they have the power?

my sense of self must grow even larger

to feel the wisdom in the gut

that so many expressed in their votes 

against the system they feel rigged,

yet I still can’t get past the pain

so many, so easily visited upon the other in voting for Trump,

and thus for the many flaws he flagrantly expressed.

by Henry H. Walker

November 12, ‘16