‘Tis the Season

You have not been raped,
Or beaten, or maimed,
Or treated like an animal
With no right to think.

Blink. And you’ll see.
You have jewels, and cash,
Food to toss like trash,
And someone in the world
Who remembers your name.

Shame! That joy comes round
Once a year
To the injured faceless loathe to hear,
“We give; we give, in Jesus’
Name.”

Still, the faceless have no name
That you will remember,
Save, perhaps, in December,
That season of the year
When the poor do hope
Their name to hear.

Mourning in America

Legal rights
Are easily won
At the point of a gun.

But it takes patience
And determination
To win rights
Through agitation.

In some tenuous space
In the public square,
Face to face,
The human in you
Meets the human in me.

When faced with the thugs,
Atlas shrugged
And ran.
So here we stand:
The human in you and the human in me,
Holding up the world for all to see –
We can talk through, not around,
Our existence, with persistence.

Like roses, rights abound.
Pick them, share them.
Listen to the sound
Of the discourse in the public square.

But, oh, how you stare!
No, indeed, that is not our public square,
Where words like bullets wound all who care
To share the shoulder burden of citizenship,

Of the human in you
And the human in me.