Open Wide

 

 

On the table, the whole of humanity

burning with fear, this onslaught

of harm, but love is not the victim.

All who have a soul within them, end up

rising up to meet the challenge of justice

and compassion.

 

The few who died long before their death

are now indisputably barren

and frighteningly corrupt.

 

Acts of mercy, acts of grace –

all of us deciding

which side we believe in.

All of us are now citizens, heroes of our charge,

children of the divine, effective, more

than helpless, feeding off God’s mercy, day to day

hour upon hour – held hostage to our inner world,

stripped of superficiality and distraction,

called to claim the slaughter we are accomplices to –

to choose the resting-nest of gratitude.

 

We are all asked to perform doubtless music,

formulate our morals and digest them

like a cure we have no choice but

to adhere to

 

for the horseman is at our tails and his shadow

is hard upon our shoulders.

 

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Copyright © 2020 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

 

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First published in “Chicago Record Magazine” August 2020

https://magazine-record.blogspot.com/2020/08/rationed-ration-out-unified-soul-make.html

https://magazine-record.blogspot.com/2020/08/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below: