WHAT WE KNOW

We’ve been at it for centuries,

This tearing away at each other,

A person, a family, a tribe, a town, a state

A nation.

It is somehow soothing and reassuring to think,

These are just horrible people,

Rather than recognizing the virus,

Lying in wait inside each of us.

The history of it piling up behind us,

Like bodies in mass graves,

Covered over with progress and good marketing.

All of this wanting rippling thru us,

More threatening than any contagion.

What can we do now,

To set it aside,

And learn the hard discipline and practice of love,

The repetitious exercising of our own restraint and control,

That’s required for true freedom and to live together in peace.