* You may say You may say as humans we are morally superior to the loon that must leave its slow fledgling behind when its deep calendar dictates the time to slap across the glassy surface of its home twist into the sky and fly south for the season. You may say it as if no human parent has ever been forced into choices that left their child in the folds of the immense darkness that is death. No matter, the beast of our interminable wars, the manner in which morality seems never to enter the mind of those statisticians-for-hire who matter-of-factly tally how many will starve in order that the rich or the despotic can divide the spoils or the colonies, (Mission Accomplished!) leave our absurd posture of moral superiority in ruins. Shadows and skeletons of courthouses and temples after every explosive offensive prove our horrific mendacity: which children are on the right and which are simply not counted. Still, you and your version of everything that is holy dare condemn the unwanted to life, dare to force birth on the unready, the unwilling, who might some other day yearn to suckle a child but not now not out of the entirety of what they cannot even offer themselves or those dependent others you have been careful enough to exclude from your damned version of worthiness. No, you may say your god has instructed you in this course of lies but nothing so full of miracles and potential as any child’s life has influenced what you call reason. We have never been as reasonable as a threatened, mournful bird, rising above our world, rising, minus its slow and failing hope, over our ash and oil-smoke, rising above your presumed moral superiority where when your current war’s babies died from hunger days ago the mothers still cannot put them down ***
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NOTE: Offerings from Compendium: The Kitchen Sink are best viewed using a laptop or PC. Poetry line endings may be corrupted on your i-phone. Photo size and viewing are best viewed via laptop or PC as well.
This is a very fine, punch in the gut, poem, Bob. I wish it did not resonate and evoke all of the emotions I am trying to bury at least for a few minutes right now. This is no fault of yours. They cannot be buried anyway and actually must not.
This is a stunningly powerful poem. Thank you, Bob.