HEARTLINES NEEDED
How breezily
most media headlines
spin people's heads in another direction—
one top-story, one-stop-shopping shifting attention
when the questions to ask are:
who decides the headlines?
how many kooks are spoiling the broth?
who's washing the dishes?
what neighbor needs a hand carrying groceries?
what neighbor NEEDS groceries?
What's happening with Iraq? . . .
the only headline rage, for a while,
then onto Afghanistan, like a three-card monte.
This diversion strategy is nothing new . . .
New York, New England, New Jersey, New Hampshire
were only named New, as in advertisements
New-and-Improved . . . but not everyone bought that!
Ask the Shinnecock, on New York's
Long Island (aka Paumanok aka Sewanacky)
for about 12,000 years.
Ask the Lenni-Lenape in New Jersey,
the Pennacook and Abenaki in New England,
ask The People anywhere
what their roots are,
where there indigenous or native
family tree is—and when it may have been cut.
Action has a past tense (what's done is done),
yet consciousness stretches its timeless mind,
stretches its eyes and heart to peer
into what went down . . . so that the truth
may rise up again, and liberate what's left of us Now-Here.
Every day the journalistic classifieds cry out:
Heartlines Needed - male, female, single, married,
gay, straight, lesbian, transgender, bisexual,
black, brown, white, red, yellow, and even green
if you believe the tabloids about outer space.
How breezily
websites provide more choices,
sometimes overwhelming but at least you can
find out for yourself, and remember what
Walt Whitman wrote in "Song of Myself"—
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand,
nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either,
nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from your self.
Print This 
Print This 