Fossil Fuel Gluttony

You smugly speed by me on the interstate
in your Hemi-powered RAM 1500 towing
a trailer laden with snowmobiles in the winter
and ATVs in the summer.

Your gluttonous mechanical entourage
consumes a gallon of precious fossil fuel
every 10 miles at 80 miles per hour and spews
13 grams of carbon monoxide per mile.

And that’s just to get you where you can
waste more fossil fuel and spew more
carbon monoxide into the atmosphere
to indulge your selfish amusement.

How will you explain this
to your great-grandchildren?

Courage

Courage is not a competition.
There are no winners or losers.

Courage is not comparative.
It’s not whether you have more
than the next person.

Courage is how you face
your particular challenges.
It’s how you deal with
what life throws your way.

Courage is crying and anger
and failure and heartache.
Courage is coping and surviving
when all seems lost.

You have no more or less courage
than your neighbor.
We are all only human.

The politics of fear vs. the fear of politics

Has the American public been so traumatized
by the politics of fear that it has developed
a fear of politics?

Will voters suffer from political PTSD
in the voting booth?

Cash Crops

Early American plantation owners
made huge profits using cheap
slave labor to produce cotton.

But they had another more lucrative crop.
They bred those slaves like animals
to produce more slaves to sell.

Too Late

How will we know when it’s too late
to save the bees?
How will we know when it’s too late
to save the wolves?
How will we know when it’s too late
to save our environment?
How will you know when it’s too late
to save your grandchildren?

Blind Fear

We’re afraid.
Afraid to think
the mighty United States
could actually be taken over
by a small group of people
who want to use it
for personal gain.

We’re scared.
Scared to admit
our sacred democracy
could be hijacked by oligarchs
who are only interested
in increasing their own
wealth and power.

We’re frightened.
Frightened to believe
there are Americans
who care only
about their grandchildren
and don’t care if ours
are left out of the
American dream.