Lament for the Human Race
Great Mercy, Ocean of Love
Abide in sorrow of dreams denied
Defied by pride and slicing violence
Of those who despise
Loathing is destroying us
Deep inside, eliding all inviting
All healing repeating flowing
Instead blocking, instead mocking
Tears flowing filling rivers
Oceans poisoned by grasping
Blind to the gasping, the gaping
Wounds inflicted and given title
Our humanity scarred, scared
Barred, bearing the weight
Of some primal cry
For a way to feel safe
At home with violence
Swaggering, daggering, daring
Staring, watching, surveilling
Reveling in the affliction of fear
Dear Spirit, living, breathing
We evoked you
Choked you, booked you
Took you away so far
Away in a desert
A closet, a house
No one goes anymore
Found, lost
You to the saving
The blaming, the shaming
The naming of sins that
Committed the crime
Destroying peoples and cultures
Takes time and then
The blood-soaked ghosts
They finally find
Back into roots
Down in the soil
Placentas and pablum and
Platelets and bones groans
Breakdown through ages
These are the pages
The lament, the mourning
The dancing restoring
Because Love knows
Grief is her sister
Their swaying, their wailing
Is the way through the pain
This lament is more
Than choices, voices
That tell us this way or
The Other
This drum beat
Dirging, purging us on
Into a womb ripe
Ready for Mother
Found deep in the ground
Bound, surrounding
This seed is not His
Hers has bided rhythmic
Timed pathways
Stocked bloodlines and desire
Fires refining reminding
Remembering
Embers of Love never
Overcome, slow burns
Warming and swarming
And now we are here
In a moment
Fomenting Love’s lavish
Reply to the fathers blanched
Clinched from the reach
Over their brothers, their sisters
Their mothers, their histories
And herstories asking
Tasking tooling ruling
Love never dies
That’s how we breathe
And weave threads through
Dread, through those dead
Dark places growing
Showing shadows
Yearning, turning toward
Freedom supple agile and new