I used to think that ignorance was bliss, for all the children of the world, and in this moment, the ones in Gaza

I used to think ignorance was bliss

 

but then I kissed my ass goodbye

and opened up my mind infinitely.

 

I became possibility, and what did I see?

 

myself…

mosaic creation’d being:

all my pieced parts are you and me and we

every one and thing being in love.

 

so I don’t feel ignorance is bliss anymore.

 

I feel it’s a prison: divisions in the making.

I feel it’s war and apathy.

I feel it’s a sorry excuse for humanity:

 

nationality jaded.

 

I feel it’s children without hope,

starving in their bombed-huts…

while others are in the drive-up.

 

I feel it’s a copout.

I feel it’s greed and gluttony and perversion…

denial of subjectivity

 

in an immature tantrum…

a case of the conundrums.

 

I feel it’s conformity

and a made for t.v. movie,

 

or even a dumbed-down sitcom.

and religion on a Sunday morning.

 

I feel it invites mediocrity,

blind melancholy without seeing.

 

I feel it labels and makes us smaller;

I feel it denies our universal matter…

 

and wonder and imagination and beauty

I feel it’s just static scatter.

 

I used to feel ignorance was bliss.

illuminating antietam

illuminating antietam

the first year it snowed.
she recalled the red sled

and her brother pulling her along

belly down among the grid they sped
so gracefully
placing

illuminating antietam.

now they return every year

letting their little lights shine,
winding down that solitary road
that tells the tale so well

l23,110 strong,
stilled voices mourning

illuminating antietam.

this was their civil war:

oxymoronic bandaged plight,

no white or black there

just red and dread of the day

that didn’t seem to want to end.

that day was spent

illuminating antietam.

and so they all still come

one by one;

impressed by the magnitude

of light's solitary witness.

who’s holy war is this?

illuminating antietam.

I wrote this poem this weekend after reading about the yearly illumination of one of the civil war's bloodiest battlefields. It reminded me of a picture I saw looking at the earth from space at night. There I saw no country, no nationality, no race or religion, but millions of points of light....and hope. I hate war and the idea of all those young men dying in what some might find futility because everyday things change, but basically they stay the same. And as I read and thought about America's bloodiest battle, I thought of the world today...and where I'd like to shine my light.

I like it when history makes me live more in the moment.

Now. Illuminating this cosmos.