Dignity (Poem)

By Amirah David

Dignity (problem of division or fear of other)

Like the splash that scattered the line of ants

Or the walls of the divided red sea

See us retreat to our camps

On either side of enemy lines

Drawn in cyber chalk 

But felt as kryptonite.

See our faces with all their readable poetry,

Slowly pixilate into bites

Boxed and labeled as black or white.

See the dignity of real flesh and blood and history

Real mother’s sons with courage and mystery

Become a paper target

To catch our dragons.

Fear is a beast with long arms and bombs

A ruler with mighty forces 1000s strong.

It is the breath for our subjective declarations of wrong - 

The yolk for hate’s spawn.

But it is also just a shadow

So great it seems it could beat you like thunder- 

But wait!

Get a light close and wonder of wonder 

That monster on the wall becomes

The small stuffed dragon from the lonely halls of the childhood

We’d forgotten.

We could scoop it up like we would a wounded kitten, 

Because that kind of care incinerates arrows 

With the wild heat of truth.

What would we do if a child 

Erased the chalk lines?

If she walked through the red sea walls with straight spine?

If she gently wiped the water away to make a safe ant passageway.

Would her face become human again?

Would we hurl our dragons and arrows when 

She refused to camp on our side, and we couldn’t win?

Look!!

She’s setting a tea party there!

With doilies and shortbread

Where we didn’t dare.

She’s inviting us all to come and be - 

To sit on her cushions,

Lift our pinkies and 

Clink our porcelain cups

And sip her rose tea,

And again see the subtle poetry.

Her name, dear friends, is: Dignity.

And her table, she calls: Humility.

And her lace lamp, in the dark of no man’s land, that is: God’s Mercy.