The Sun Came Out Today
We need each other, walking through this smoking field.
The sun came out today.
I woke in smoking battlefields
Strewn with blood and broken lives
Covered in crosses and littered with discarded masks.
Scuffed-up yard signs. Graffiti.
Blackened skeletons of burned out cars and buildings.
In the last four years, the creeks ran dry.
No water to put out burning towns or forests,
Or save the salmon, gasping on the toxic banks.
The sun came out today.
I still hear the children, calling for their mothers
Tapping on the glass in nursing homes
And all the other horrors. Too numerous to list.
One after another: Obscenities. Indignities.
And hate.
Hate.
Hurled from rooftops, muttered by an online passer-by,
Written in ALL CAPS, with torches.
I’m exhausted by the hate.
The sun came out today.
Too early to forgive? Yes. Maybe. Probably.
But it’s okay, my brother.
There’s time enough for that.
Today, let’s just not speak. No words.
No hate. No vitriol.
No clever poison words
Or suppurating tweets
From anyone. From me. From you.
From my side. From yours.
Let him rant. He is of no accord.
The sun came out today.
So give me something to do.
Some way to help. I will roll up my sleeves.
No more feasting with the haters, breakers, the walking living dead
There’s only work ahead
Reconstruction.
Brothers, help your sisters.
Sisters, help your fathers
Fathers, help your mothers
Mothers, find your children
You need a hand?
Here, I’ll help you up.
Then, can you help me to my feet?
We need each other, walking through this smoking field.
