Megan Grant
Newaygo High School, Grade 11
“Abandoning the Trenches”
Fight fire
With fire
Or take my hand?
Yell
Scream
Grit our teeth
Clench our fists
Plug our ears
Close off our minds
And shut everyone who disagrees
Out
Or
Listen?
Not just hear-
Listen.
Turn away
Or turn a new page?
The world’s afire
With the burning passions
Of men
The sky is clouded
With the smoke of our discord
Our world stained
With the soot of our indecision
Our heated animosity
Melts the cool refuge of friendship
Love is a memory
Far too distant to count on
It’s okay to hate your neighbor
If you pray to your god every night
Olive branches burn before us
And,
Apathetic,
We turn away
Hands empty.
Hearts empty.
While we wait in stagnant slumber
For someone to break
Before we bend
Vultures are congregating
Days are coming where our vacillation
has real consequences
Where the atmosphere is heavy
And islands are swallowed whole
Incited hatred is amassing
Growing
Surging
Falling off
Only to concentrate into a greater mass
Vast as an ocean wave
Deep enough to drink,
Real enough
to drown us
Like the first great flood
Civility
Is derelict
Knee deep in quagmire we made
Engulfed completely by the trenches we’ve labored upon
Muddy anger
And bloody bullets
Litter a political battlefield
Do we even know why we’re so angry anymore?
We sit in our foxholes
And fire upon our brothers
Would you rather
Kill your brother
Or admit you’re wrong?
If everyone burns everyone
With the calefaction of our hatred
Aren’t we all on fire?
If nothing else
Could we not use
The heat of our passions
To solder
New, great compromise?
Work together for a total recall
on hatred and bigotry?
Could we not
Use our ardor for change
To foster a better future for everyone?
But we look different!
It changes nothing.
We feel
We hurt
We live
We die
We love
We love
We love
We love.
Are we really that different?
We don’t speak the same language!
Every language has a word for love.
Te amo.
Je t’aime.
사랑해- Saranghae.
Я люблю тебя- Ya tebya liubliu.
我爱你- Wo ai ni.
Our beliefs are too different!
We are never
ever
too different to love one another.
We aren’t born
To give in to the instincts of nature
Humans are sentient
We have the capacity for great things
If we work together.
Why act like a mindless creature
If you are better than one?
Why yell and carry on
If you can learn beautiful things
If you
just
listen?
We are given ears to listen
Mouths to speak truths
Free of passion
eyes to view
The souls of our brethren
And hands
To hold.
Boundless possibilities
Bloom before us
After all:
Flowers grow best
From ashes
Friendships grow strongest
From adversity
Compromise is grown
From forgiveness
Progress is dependent
Upon civility.
The soil we spring from
does not change the human hearts
That beat within our chests
Nor the love
That flows ebulliently
From our souls
We aren’t that different.
If we are so devoted to our own ideas
Can we not
Shift the devotion-
if only slightly-
If it’s in the interest of mankind’s wellbeing?
For, If nothing else,
We are men
We have common ground
If I cross no-man’s land,
Will you take my olive branch?
Will you hold my hand?