A Single Story

I woke up this morning

I took the dog out for her morning pee,
letting her whirl around the yard chasing
the taunting squirrels in the tree.

I squinted up at the cloudy sky
that looked  so uniformly grayish
until I stood perfectly still to see the
almost subliminal swirls of shape
and shade.

Sometimes you have to stand still
to really see.

I brought the dog in,
made my self a cup of coffee
and opened my computer.

Every social media feed was buzzing with
variations on a single story:

On July 6th, 2016
Philando Castile was driving his car
at 9:00 at night
down a street
in St. Anthony, Minnesota.

Next to him sat his girlfriend
and behind them sat her 4 year old daughter.

A police car came up behind Philando Castile's car,
lights flashing,
and pulled Philando  over for a broken tail light.

These are the facts we absolutely know, facts upon which
everyone agrees.

But then we go into that dim place where facts are harder
to prove.

That place when Philando rolled down his window
and informed the officer that he was carrying a gun
and had a permit.

That place where Philando reached for his wallet,
for his driver's license.

That place where the police officer
made a choice,
or a guess,
or panicked,
and pulled out his gun
and shot Philando four times.

Then the dimness lifts as
Philando's girlfriend pulls out her
cell phone
and begins taking a terrible video
of her bleeding boyfriend slumped sideways in his seat,
blood tie-dyeing his white shirt crimson
while the officer outside keeps
his gun trained on Philando.

The officer outside shaking,
his voice raw and shrill.

In the backseat,
a silent four year old girl,
watching, hearing, absorbing it all.

Four lives intersected that night
over a broken tail light.

One life--Philando's life-- ended that night
over a broken tail light.

Yesterday
the officer with the shaking gun and raw voice
was declared innocent.

As soon as the verdict was announced
angry, protesting voices lifted,
the tears flowed,
Philando's mother captured on camera,
powerful in her everlasting maternal fury
over the death of her son.

And yet this morning the sun rose
and clouds moved
and dogs went out to pee
and coffee got made
and no one knows
how to do more
than join together in anger and pain,
and then slump back home
into the terrible impotent silence
of our leaders.

This is about far more
than police officers
and broken tail lights
and mistaken intention.

This is about guns
and fear of the other
and about honestly answering this question:

If Philando Castile had been white
instead of black,
would he still be alive today?

Not Today

If I were a new glimmer
about to be born
I would not be born today.

I would not choose now
to enter this world
in it's hateful disarray.

Terrorism
in Europe

anti-Korean movements
in Japan

LGBTQ Russian citizens
being tortured and imprisoned

Syrian refugees fleeing
a decimated homeland,

and Donald Trump
peeling back American's skin
to reveal the ugly ignorance and intolerance within.

No.

If I were watching
this
all this
from that unseeable place
where souls await,
I would not be tempted
to join a world
where humans
willingly give up
their better,
kinder,
wiser selves
for the fleeting betrayals
of
power
and pride.




CHM
6/4/2017

What Makes You Special

Are you afraid?
We're all afraid.

Are you angry?
We're all angry.

Do you feel threatened by forces beyond your control?
Do you wonder if your way of life is being challenged?

We all feel the threat of personal extinction.
None of this makes you special.

What makes you special
is precisely what makes you dangerous.

What makes you special is turning a blind eye
to greed and corruption,

What makes you special is compromising your better judgement
to support people in power who embody the worst of human nature.

Each time you choose
to listen to hate,
to believe half-truths
to follow without asking yourself "why",

each time you claim your God
is more vengeful and hating
than benevolent and loving

that which makes you special
makes you  more dangerous.

Hatred is easy.
Ignorance is easy.
Blind belief is easy.

These require nothing more than sitting on your couch
flicking through channels of talking heads who feed  hatred,

or wandering through internet sites that fuel ignorance
and wrap layers of lies around beliefs.

You can judge others
who are more like you than different.

But there is a remedy for what ails you.

Put down the remote.
Lay aside your phone.
Close your computer.
Stand up.

Then  step out your door with fresh eyes
and a heart that is ready
to embrace
the open beauty
that has been hiding
beneath your "special" hatred
all along.

Beautiful Devastation

Here is what I've learned:

all beauty comes from a place of pain,
a place of discomfort
or doubt,
fear
or sadness.

Trace that dance,
that lilting piece of music
that painting
that poem
back far enough,
and you'll find the
troubled spark.

Beauty comes from the cloudy gray
shadows of our lives
for it is against that dim beginning
that our brightest selves shine.

Our soul-locked beauty needs the gentle devastation
of doubt and sadness and grief-
the realization that we are no more
and no less
than flawed flesh and bone.



4.29.2017

Dark, Light, Dark

Life is light and dark
and everything in between.

There are no sides,
no absolute good or absolute evil.

Our superficial intolerance and hatred are
as damaging and unnecessary
as the invisible borders we have long drawn
between each other.

I've come to believe
that if  humans are meant to survive
we will
but not through might.

We will survive through
intelligence
and empathy,
generosity
and humility
compromise
and discussion
using the best of ourselves.

And if humans are not meant to survive?

I, for one, won't be all that  surprised.

The darkness has always been there,
inside us
around us
behind us
and we chose to embrace it
instead of each other.




4/27/2017

Just Another American Day

This was just another American day.

Another American day
under sunny Southern California skies
when a shooter made his way onto
an elementary school campus
with the Second Amendment  in his pocket.

Another American day
blown in with the Chicago breeze
when an Asian doctor
was dragged from self-proclaimed
"friendly skies"
for daring to keep the seat
for which he had paid.

Another American day spent
teasing apart how we can fire missiles
in defense of people
to whom we deny sanctuary.

Another American day
where intolerance, racism, bigotry and assault
are polished rings adorning the  pale fingers
of the powerful, the famous and mistakenly respected.

Just another American day.

How much will this American day
subtract from our future?

What price will we all pay
for our American days?

4/10/2017

Forgotten Immigrant Roots: A Letter

Dear President Trump

Don’t forget that through your veins

5

runs immigrant blood as well.

What would your immigrant mother

Mary Anne MacLeod-

born in Scotland-

think of you today?

Would she praise your treatment of immigrants

when she was once  poor and  in their same desperate shoes?

Would she praise your budgetary decimation

of the arts, of food programs for the young, elderly and poor

when she used her eventual status and money to support

organizations for disabled adults and cerebral palsy? 

We will never know. 

2,6

Perhaps it does not matter to you what 

your mother

would’ve thought or said 

because it is abundantly clear that 

you modeled yourself after your 

paternal grandfather (and German immigrant)

Friedrich Trump (born Drumpf). 

His  tenacity to succeed

often overrode the softer, perhaps you would say weaker human qualities

of  compassion, ethics, legality and morality.

This same tenacity and impatience for anything that stood in his way

was inherited by your father, Frederick Christ Trump.

And so it goes, 

from your paternal grandfather

to your father

to you.

I wonder Mr. President,

what is it in your immigrant past

that has twisted you so thoroughly

to despise and legislate against people

who, after all,

want to immigrate here for so many of the same  reasons

that compelled your mother to leave her home. 

You may say that your family is none of our business.

And to a certain point you are correct.

Everyone deserves a certain privacy after all.

However,

in seeking and winning the Presidency of the United States

you are now the face of this nation,

and whether or not you want to acknowledge it,

you are

a public servant.

And so we are watching. 

We must watch and we must ask

and we must investigate.

Your smokescreens of 

tweets,

your carnival of foolish and dangerous advisors, 

and your shameful unprofessionalism when meeting with world leaders

have clouded the reason and thinking of some—

your supporters, confused and desperate for change and help

you are incapable of delivering--

but there are many more of us who see you quite clearly.

You choose to wear the cloak of the buffoon

in order to covertly erode our nation from within.

After all, any playground bully knows

it is always easier to rule over the frightened, fragmented  and desperate

than the confident and united.

But many of us see the destructive path

down which you are leading our country. 

Our country.

So we’ll remind you that it wasn’t so long ago

that your own family members

were once the “other",

the outsiders wanting, needing to get in.

And that your right to call this country YOURS,

your right to become President of the United States,

rests squarely on the backs of your own

immigrant

family 

roots.

Sources

1. https://www.scottishroots.com/people/donald.php

2. http://www.dw.com/en/what-donald-trump-learned-from-his-german-grandpa-friedrich-drumpf/a-18701551

3. http://www.snopes.com/donald-trumps-mother-illegal-immigrant/

4. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trumps-immigrant-mother

5. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3602299/An-uncomfortable-truth-REAL-story-Trump-s-mother-climbed-penniless-Scottish-immigrant-wife-businessman-revealed.html

6. http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/22/politics/trump-grandfather-germany-friedrich/