I’m puzzled by where we find ourselves,

puzzled, grieving, sickened.

When did hate root itself in our choices?

And divisiveness and defensiveness,

offendedness, opinion and othering,

fragile egos and rigidity,

become the stuff of a collective north star?

This illness snakes through my own family–

microcosm macrocosm–

its source generations back, before mental memory.

Remaining in body.

Remains,

a cemetery, until recognized,

named.

In this moment, and they do keep changing,

rearranging,

I see us collectively entranced

staring, a shadow Narcissus, into the dark side

of a mesmerizing mirror image

in polluted waters.

What are we watching? Reading?

Ingesting, binging, consuming online,

in media and from around us?

Which likes? Which feeds?

What groups, cohorts?

And who actually pulls the invisible strings behind?

Where’s the money go by addiction

to corporate feed?

We’re being factory farmed.

We are stuck until we can each awaken

to the worst in ourselves,

seeing there is no other, no

out there,

no them.

It is we. This is our sickness.

Which seeds will we water in ourselves?

In one another?

Hate?

Or love?

Pick up the phone,

talk with a friend, remember

sound of voice, warmth of body,

land holding us up,

and that breath

is finite.