Monday, July 12, 2021

asleep, as prey

 

despair so close


despair hovers close to my surface,


hundreds of thousands of Americans have died,

and too many of my fellow countrymen don’t seem to have noticed,

are we so much a prey species

that we deny the predator

if it has not yet gotten us?


I am an historian,

and I want to know the vagaries and realities of the past,


I cannot fathom those Americans

who cannot see and know the closeness of Trump

to Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler,


American is still a rich and successful country,

the physical manifestations of success

don’t seem to matter to too many when compared to the psychic horror

of privilege denied, of people with different skin color, different religion,

joining the community, maybe leading it?


I despair when I realize how much the success of another

can make some of us feel so much lesser,

the future I look forward to 

knows that all of us are on boats,

and the tide coming in can lift us all.



by Henry H. Walker
July 8, ‘21

No comments: