A Short History of the World

It is said
in the village marketplaces in Africa
and in the piazzas of Italy,
at farmer’s markets in New England,
on the edges of fields in China,
even on Wall Street in the din of bells and whistles
that everything must change.

In this perennial fall of closed minds
and hearts boarded up
like failed shops and abandoned homes
where the cooks at the neighborhood diner
can only scorch or freeze ideas
and toss them on a plate
like fighting words—
what has happened to the American hero
hunting down the selfish wolf
left to feed hungrily
on the dreaming of Yes?

Have we learned nothing
watching American girls and boys
fall victim to hateful words
and disrespect for anything holy
in the name of someone else’s God?

Have we learned nothing from the suffering—
repeat after me,
repeat after me,
repeat after me, my friends,
that comes from staying the course?

Let us not ask
what others will do for us anymore
in our illusion of youth and beauty.
It is time for us to grow up
and ask what we will do for others—
for the sake of the future,
for the promise of peace,
for the inevitable grace
that must change in this short human history
of the world.