how and where to go now?

 

three roads call to us

three realities, illustrated by calendar events,

converge today, and give me pause,

1st, we are still within the mourning month

for losing Jimmy Carter,

our most decent, common man, President,

2nd, we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.,

a man who saw what wasn't

and pushed us to deal with "why not?"

3rd, we inaugurate our next President, Donald Trump,

who ran on a platform of anger, of grievance, of desperation, 

fearing his many floutings of the law

would send him to prison,

I have spent much of my life

working to help others find and express

the best of who they are,

I have worked to help community build, 

wherever it can,

so many of such efforts have been "Trumped"

by the pushing of us to fight who is not "us,"

in the spurious building of "community" by hating "them,"

I think of someone drowning who pushes the potential rescuer down

so as to get above the water for a moment,

I ache to hear Jimmy and Martin advise us

on how and where to go now.

by Henry H. Walker

January  20, ‘25