The faults of man that make us drip tears,
feel pain,
wrench our insides with
crudely hewn weapons with
words so sharp;
so
impossible to create, yet,
we do…
…and
well.
We commit war
on ourselves, throw
death like bags of wheat
or rice
on trucks for the poor
evenly distributed
by lottery
by luck
by
plan.
It’s not my religion or
yours or
spirits or energy or
that spark of
life, that sense of who we are
who they were
the people who we knew and
will
never
be…it is humanity itself.
They lay dead before us;
our sons, our daughters,
wives, husbands,
fathers,
mothers.
It is not these things (now) that
sting our eyes,
souls,
make us feel loss and fear
death.
It is base humanity
and
our connection:
through blood
and
DNA and
history…the residue of war;
the inky black
stain that coats
our insides
and the internal reaches
of our minds.