Stop It Now

Image: found at http://cecillethestoryteller.wordpress.com



All over this world tonight

there are Souls saying

“No!”

Some are in little bodies,

some in big bodies,

some in long-wearied elderly form.

They are saying “No”

to sticks and stones

and words

that do hurt.

And no one is listening.

Shoulders fall forward,

eye shine fades,

bruises form

on the inside and out.

Hope departs in fragments.

Witnesses

cross to the opposite side of the street,

leave the room,

pour a glass,

turn the music up,

change the subject,

join in.

How much more evolutionary process

is needed before the human species

becomes a species humane

to its own membership?

Don’t shift your eyes away,

refrain from going deaf and dumb.

The future created in complacency

is lived by us all.

See the atrocities there before you.

Listen to the silent and primal screams.

Step up and say “No!” in whatever loving way

you can,

louder than they can,

they are so very tired.

That is someone’s

Daughter/Son,

Sister/Brother,

Mother/Father,

Grandparent.

That is a mirror you are looking into.

That was a person,

a village,

a People.

Have you taken the time to cry out in agony

for the generations of cowardice

that has taken generations

from us?

Flame and rope and gas,

gun and blanket.

How is it that a simple,

two-letter word

has so eluded the masses?

“No!”

It needs to stop.

It has to stop.

“Stop it now!”

© 2010-2017/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 

www.hiraethpress.com

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