A Poem: May the Broken Hearted Unite Us

May the Broken Hearted Unite Us

My heart breaks for the broken hearted, they are everywhere.
We have passed them everyday.
Some smile, some walk the other way.
How my heart breaks for the broken hearted, for they are we.

Me. You. Us. Them. Pick a side, doesn't matter which.
We are all sides, even when it is sides we switch.
Or, no sides that we pick. Some decisions cannot stick.
Whatever shall we do? We're all standing in the thick.

One shoveller heaps dirt on the feet of the nearest shoveller
as resulting dustbins turn aerial acrobatics into dirty words.
Stalks balk with the dusty tidings, plows--buried swords--
we're in the sand like osteriches: heads down, asses to the whir.

Rain: when it finally comes, our tears, rivulets of mud pour down
the streets, the creeks, the cheeks of the famished, the farmers
who begged for rain, wished for rain dancers, water charmers,
the mercy of an entity that turns storm clouds into a garden crown.

Perch that watery crown upon the cracked, parched grounds
that once fed the heart and soul of powerful nations.
Laborers, backs bent to hard work, wonder at their stations.
Fat cat facial creams, from foreskins of clipped boy babies, abound.

What's that sound? Disgust, don't let it rust. Grab it. Hold it. Know it.
There's a sickness plagues the lands. Swift, he understood
irony like nobody else could. And, Irish babies would
make headlines break: Feed'em to the rich, poverty sows it.

Take your disgust, do something useful with it. Stand up, shout out,
don't let them, don't let us, do anything that reeks of genocide.
The false promise of GMO killing us--worker bees--we die by pesticide.
We've got to, regardless whose stocks wilt. Greedsters: we must rout out.

And now, you know why. We are us and them and my heart
breaks for a world filled with dividing lines. It's no place to start.
But, it's the only place we've ever been--divided.
We know yet how to cleave to one another--united.

The broken hearts, the lovers who've lost, the parents, the children,
the families without, these hearts mend, then grow to love again.
So, too, can we, me and you, as we plant the seeds for prosperity
and tend the gardens with our tears until the rains aren't a rarity.

~Monique Finley
4-13-2013