Wednesday, April 18, 2007

a very simple wish

by nikki giovanni

i want to write an image
like a log-cabin quilt pattern
and stretch it across all the lonely people
who just don't fit in
we might make a world if i do that

i want to boil a stew with all the leftover folk
whose bodies are full
of empty lives
we might feed a world if i do that

twice in our lives
we need direction
when we are young and innocent
when we are old and cynical
but since the old refused to discipline us
we now refuse to discipline them
which is a comtemptuous way
for us to respond to each other

i'm always surprised
that it's easier to stick
a gun in someone's face
or a knife in someone's back
than to touch skin to skin
anyone whom we like

i should imagine if nature holds true
one day we will lose our hands
since we do no work nor make any love
if nature is true
we shall all lose our eyes
since we cannot even now distinguish the good from the evil
i should imagine we shall lose our souls
since we have so blatently put them up
for sale and glutted the marketplace
thereby depressing the price

i wonder why we don't love
not some people way on
the other side of the world with strange customs and habits
not some folk from whom we were sold
hundreds of years ago
but people who look like us
who think like us
who want to love us why
don't we love them

i want to make a quilt of all the patches and find
one long strong pole
to lift it up
i've a mind to build
a whole new world

want to play

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