Keep Looking
©Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Every strand of my DNA
Takes me further back
And farther
And is woven through
All life around me.
Every strand of my DNA
Shivers when people suffer
And when they kill,
I feel killed, cell by cell.
And every nucleotide in me
Hears every nucleotide in you.
I hear you, and I see you.
What you feel is pain and rage,
And it hurts.
And when you hurt someone,
It hurts.
And when you hurt yourself,
It hurts.
There is a suppurating sore
In the body politic
Logic and empathy die by degrees.
Flawed reasoning struts about.
How shall we heal this?
Look deep within my eyes
I’ll look deep within yours.
Let’s look closely, and see
Who sits inside, crouching
Or strutting, who laughs,
Who cries, who rages.
What do you see?
What do I see?
Let it all seep out, all the
Hatred, rejection, anger, spite
Rage, hurt, sorrow, indifference,
All that rushing, tumbling loneliness,
And, hiding deep in there, a lost
Child, hurting, always hurting, alone,
Deaf and blind in a dark cellar,
Where love comes not,
And fear resides, and grief
Twisted into rage.
Keep looking.
Do not look away.
____________________________________________________