Today, I offer you a poem that is a celebration of the resiliency of the human spirit. It is a tribute to truth, the power of the truth and to the unstoppable force that is exercised through unity. It celebrates the fact that what defeats us alone can be conquered when we stand together.
It is also a testimonial to the fact that while hope may be maimed and mauled, it can never be totally annihilated. The seed of hope lives within us all, even in the most infertile of times. We sometimes simply need to be reminded to till the soil…
PREMATURE EPITAPH
Sorrow ascended
wisps of mist
out of damp air
despair
bullets broke
hatred hurt unguarded
skin of human dignity
we bled
not a small thing taking
a bit of us how pale we seemed
waiting for wounds
to heal
no solace there fearing it was
ordained we’d bleed
again
~~~
unlikely
heralds heeded the noisome call
to sermonize enunciate a litany
of lies who cries for me
the children wailed who tries for me
the helpless homeless bruised
despised disguised as villains
in their battered skin asked of a God
a heaven that would not
let them in by what name
did we call sin those days
those damaged days
limped crawled despoiled defiled
denied the dignity of living
dissonant
the dirge the world
had learned to sing
we fell
crippled birds broken winged
seeds harvested from yesterday’s
bounty fluttered
lifeless to
unyielding soil
all of us
each of us
we who remembered
those who forgot destiny
did not decree we’d be
as we were
then alone
we crumbled stale
as desiccated bread
clutched in the fist
of dread
~~~
…but
we as one
voice discovered
we are multitudes needing
only grasp tomorrow
in our calloused
hands instruct the fallow
fields to leap again to life
knowing
what we always knew
to till the soil
we need to wield the shovel
not the knife…
-Susan A. Katz (All rights reserved)
