A poem written by David after the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville. His language is raw and vivid and impassioned, but hopeful, too, always hopeful. And there is even room for pity for the demonstrators themselves: “Were they ever shown loving kindness?”

Charlottesville

Animated ideas rise as gray ghosts in the summer night,
Feral cats prowling littered alleys looking for a fight,
Drawn hungrily to rotting smells of offal’s slippery bed,
Cold bodies dragged up that many had thought dead.

Barefaced lies unearthed approved by Nazi hate,
An archaic power wakens to separate the righteous race
From Jews, blacks, gays, and brown faces,
Eliminate race pollution, keep order, divide to make safe.

Our enraged brothers and sisters wildly brawl pell mell,
Burning lava bursting into bigotry, racism and hot hell!
What terrible wounds torment such desperate souls!
Were they ever shown loving kindness instead of woes?

Will death hunt us all down till there’s no more light?
Or will we bestir ourselves to face white supremacy’s alt right?
Moments come when the living stand up against the cruel,
An ancient remnant remembers that it’s time to speak true.

Declare with untethered strength who God created us to be,
Love’s children strong and creative, tall trees growing free,
It’s not too late! though hounds of Hades loudly bay,
In each age and place we have to begin, today.

david walters
August 2017