I wrote this piece in response to a poetry prompt, About the Phones by Robert Wood Lynn, which I offered in a recent Write Your Way In workshop.
Humans of the World
Is it about guns? Or people. Is it about babies? Or control. Is it about children or something sinister? We say ‘inhumane.’ We say, ‘humanity’ as in, show some. But humans have to work at being that kind of human,
Blood can’t speak but guns somehow do.
I’m sorry humans cling desperately to hurtful, harmful, hateful things. I lie in the grass on my belly and tell the earth I’m sorry and I love you. And a deerfly claims a chunk of flesh at the back of my neck.
We are cornered now, despite a comfortable bed, an unlocked door, food on the table. Still.
In countries with little food and no safe place to lie, men and women lie on the phone and in emails, not because they are evil but because they are hungry and scared.
I sat with a guru who once said, “A single candle can set the whole world aflame.” We were thousands of fiery candles and the world stomped us cold.
Let us rise up one by one and all at once until our beautiful voices silence the gunfire, our warrior bodies clog the streets where tanks have tried.
We must plant seeds and not the bodies of children.
What I’m trying to say is human nature when it’s starving is dog eat dog. It takes work, real work to be a true human being. Some days it seems that darkness is swallowing what light we still carry, but real human beings do persist. I know many. I see them when those on social media reach out for help, and offers of food, clothing, or furniture flood in.
Posts on The Good News Channel, Upworthy, and The Good News Movement, where ordinary people perform acts of generosity or selflessness make me cry. Kindness makes me cry and that makes me wonder afresh.
Other media erupts with murders/guns/knives/bombs as if it’s normal/expected.
There are enough explosives alive within us, don’t you think? Let us diffuse them with kindness.
Let us just be kind.
Amazing!!!