Peace and Pieces
We’ve got our men suited up
Guns a blazed
Finger on the button
And we think on the pulse.
But what happened to kindness?
What happened to understanding?
Why must God be placed on his judgment throne
When He simply wants to dine with us?
We wrap ourselves in the flag
We gaze at its fifty stars.
And yet the infinite ones above us
Burn in all our eyes.
Why do we not wrap our arms
Around those who are angry?
Why do we not gaze up at the wonder
even with those we call friends?
We’re so busy making places,
Faces, traces
of remnants that will be lost in a short while.
How can we reach across the seas
When we can’t reach up,
Or out,
Or around our own collapsed shoulders?
We fight in the name of peace
But not for ourselves within,
And that landscape is familiar terrain.
Yet for years unchanged, unmoved.
Dry as the desert on which those boots pound.
Yes, I can move mountains
But won’t move an inch
In the name of being right.
The hope turns to hopelessness.
Where does it end?
When did it start?
In the beginning…
Comfort myself, then the one next to me,
Then the one at arm’s reach,
Not as big a distance as it once seemed
And soon maybe the stars and stripes
Will have meaning again.
At least for me.
Tina Turley – January, 2011
