High Alert: a poem for today’s troubles

Oh, my people

we are so busy pointing fingers

and choosing sides,

finding fault and criticizing

each other

that we have lost track

of the goodness of our human selves.

One side sees a potential

for a life to develop

and wants to protect it, despite

who is carrying that cluster of cells

and what her story is,

the other side sees the life

who is carrying the cluster of cells,

and wants to protect her.

One side believes in the duality and sameness

of gender and biological sex from a book

they believe was written by a deity,

the other side sees that science and society

at times create conflict and chaos,

and minds do not always match

their bodies, so genders do not

always match the biological sexes

people were assigned at birth.

One side believes these dual genders

should only be allowed to marry

in opposite sex couples,

the other side believes anyone

is allowed to love whoever they choose.

One side sees the addictive power of certain substances

and seeks to keep them out of all hands

on behalf of the people who will suffer

from their injurious dependence,

the other side sees that addiction is something

the individual must fight,

and seeks to allow these chemicals

to be sold for all,

regardless of the effect they have

on the minority.

One side wants to regulate weapons away

from the masses, seeing that not all people

are reliable conduits of sanity and safety,

the other side wants the right to hold

their own guns in their hands

in protection of the very same people,

saying that is the way

they will not live in fear.

Is there not a way

of halting the nitpicking

of our semantics,

a way of coming to middle ground,

a way all may live

to say they feel free?

Can we not come off

our high horses,

and instead of feeling superior,

find where we are similar?

Can we discover a way

where all are free

to express their beliefs,

where laws exist

that protect, and empower?

That tolerate, and guide?

Or are we doomed to create our lines

and stand behind them

pointing our fingers at the other side

neither of us willing

to give the other

a hair’s breadth

of the benefit

that we perhaps each

have good intentions,

just poor ways

of expressing ourselves.

Oh, if we all could care

for our neighbor

as if each person in the planet

were the ones living

beside us,

needing our love.

*

June 30, 2022

Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold