#hate
HER GREATEST FEAR
With poverty, hunger, hatred and war seemingly around every bend
he asked the wisest person he knows if she feared the world is coming to an end.
She looked at him with a sadness that made him feel a little strange
“I do not fear the world will end.” she said.
“I fear it will continue without change”.
THE PANDEMIC
Years from now when they speak of this disease
people will say how they’re not sure where it began.
They’ll talk of how contagious it was…
and how it swept across the land.
They’ll call it a Pandemic…this particular disease
because it had no limitations…
no restrictions
it knew no boundaries
They’ll say how it didn’t matter
ones religion,
sexual preference
color
country of origin
or name
This disease was unrelenting…
single-minded
it treated everyone the same
They’ll say how we passed it on to to one another
at a truly frightening rate
They’ll remember how by the time people knew they had it…
it often was too late.
They’ll talk of searching for an answer…
while many people died
of how this disease isolated them from their families…
and how their families cried.
They’ll speak of this invisible enemy…
say how it was impossible to eradicate…
They’ll even give this disease a name…
they will call it hate.
Years from now when they speak of this disease…
or write about it in their literature
They’ll wonder why so many people died…
when they already had the cure.
IF I WAS GOD FOR A DAY
Sometimes when the world saddens me
at night when I fold my hands to pray
I like to think how things would be quite different
If I was God…for a day.
The first thing I’d do is eliminate hate
I’d throw everyone’s hate away
I’d replace all their hate with love
If I was God…for a day.
With love in our hearts we’d accept everyone
we meet along the way
no matter how different they seem to us…
If I was God…for a day.
If I was God…for a day.
Everyone would grow up healthy, safe, secure and well fed
We’d all live long and happy lives
and die peacefully in our beds.
I’m sure there’d be more to do
more problems to face along the way
but this seems like a great place to start
If I was God…for a day.
Of course this will most likely never happen
I may never get to be God for a day
but at least it gives me something to hope for
at night…when I fold my hands to pray.
SEESAW THROUGH THE WALL
SEE SAW THROUGH THE WALL
He understands they’re innocent children…they learn only what we teach them
and when separated by a wall of hate…he wondered how to reach them.
He knows they know nothing of hatred…of intolerance and bigotry…
but he also knows they are impressionable…they will learn from what they see.
He knows they are looking to the adults at this susceptible time of their youth
to teach them of love and compassion…of integrity and truth…
He wants to show these children and the world that ones so honest, pure and small
are equal and can play together…even separated by a wall.
So he built a multitude of seesaws to show how we’re all sisters and brothers.
To show what happens on one side of the wall…affects what happens on the other.
To show it’s as easy to raise someone up as it is to put them down
As easy to make them smile…as it is to make them frown.
His name is Ronald Rael…it was his idea…his creation
he and other artist friends are behind the installation.
And so the children laugh and play…and as they learn each other’s names
they see, although, separated by a wall of hate…they both love to play the same.
And I wonder what would happen if we followed the lead of ones so small
and had those who fear and hate…ride a seesaw through the wall.
As they were bouncing up and down…would the learn each other’s names?
Would they finally come to understand how we are all the same?
Would they smile at one another?
Would they realize that fear and hate are wrong?
For isn’t that what many of us…have wanted all along?
THAT FINAL DAY
Isn’t it curious how everyone alive on Earth that final day
bowed or knelt or raised their hands and to their God did pray.
Oh God! They asked. “How could you…condemn us to such a fate?”
“You condemned yourselves!” their Gods answered.
“When you turned our love to hate.”
THEY EACH CAMED TO THEIR GOD
They each approached their God in their own way…
some stood, some knelt…most of them bowed their heads…
“I come to you with a problem…I need your help!” they said.
Then as their Gods listened from their heavens or from atop their mountain peak
simultaneously from here on Earth each person began to speak…
From all corners of the planet…their appeals were the same
“There is so much hate in the world,” they said…
and they were quick to place the blame…
(Here is where each person’s story gets a little odd)
for they put the blame not on themselves…
but on the other people and their Gods.
Each God listened intently from their place up in the sky
and after a moment or two of silence…each God began to cry.
“You have forgotten why you were put here.” Each God answered,
“I find it so bizarre…that you have forgotten your reason for living
you have forgotten who you are.”
“This is not a problem for me.” Each God continued.
“You know what you need to do…
or have you forgotten the power to fix this…
lies not with me…but you?”
“You speak to us of hate!,”
this was spoken in one combined voice booming from above…
“Come back to us,” the voice continued,
“when you can speak of love.”
I WANTED TO WRITE A POEM ABOUT HATE
I wanted to write a poem about hate…
as a way to understand it
but the more I tried…the more this poem…
didn’t go the way I planned it…
I wanted to write a poem about hate…
but the more I searched my brain
I found hate much too complicated…
too difficult to explain…
I wanted to write poem about hate…
instead the best I can do
is write about something I’ve often wondered about
something…I believe to be true….
Something we all need to be reminded….
to remember before it’s too late…
how we were created by love…to love
not created by hate…to hate.
It’s funny:
I wanted to write a poem about hate
because lately…it’s what I’ve been thinking of
but when I sat down to actually write it
all I could think about
was love.
ONCE AGAIN
Once again our nation…our world…is mired…in a sad and gloomy fog
as 11 more people have been massacred in a Pittsburgh synagogue…
11 innocent people praying one minute…the next ceasing to exist
11 innocent people added to a long and growing list.
Once again we are filled sorrow…once again our grief we can’t disguise
Once again we feel for the families…once again the whole world cries…
Yes, once again we’re crying as more of our innocence drifts away
because tears are all we have left…when we have no more words to say.
Joyce Fienberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Cecil Rosenthal, 59
David Rosenthal, 54
Bernice Simon, 84
Sylvan Simon, 86, (husband of Bernice)
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69
THE FIRST STEP
I wonder if our president and everyone who hates have any idea why they hate or where their hate originates.
Did something happen to make them hate? Is it something they can elucidate?
When did this hateful point of view come to permeate all they say and do?
Is hate like a cold…something they once caught or was it from their parents…taught?
If we were born to love why did they depart…when did hate engulf their hearts?
Do they understand when animosity and malevolence they create it empowers other people to loathe and hate?
And when they think about it wouldn’t they find it odd that they’ve linked their hatred with their God?
For if God is love as all religions teach then wouldn’t all God’s everywhere our love beseech?
And those who stand behind a president who hates…who do nothing as he vituperates?
who cheer and encourage him…all those who applaud…I have to wonder…where is their God?
It sickens and saddens many of us to see this hate and we can no longer sit on our hands and wait.
It’s time to put our country back on track…to defeat this evil…we must fight back.
And the first part of the antidote is to go to the polls in November…and vote!
There may be no way to eliminate hate…of this I have no doubt
No… we may not be able to eliminate it…
but we can can sure as hell vote it out.