poetry .. for 9-11

I wrote this following the 9-11 attacks, when all the talk was about hate and retaliation .. It is not what this great nation was built upon .. More and more today, I see us united, not by our love, but by our hatred and intolerance .. there was a great man that said that we were "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. We are now engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated can long endure."

I will not teach my children to hate

How do I teach my children?

Is it in the abundance of the words I say?

Can words turn their hearts,

When they are held in my actions sway;

What example have I fashioned,

Living in my day to day,

Every harsh or cruel word,

Molding hearts like pliant clay;

What acts of kindness,

Will influence their way,

To which memory will they turn

When passions begin to stray;

When attacks defy reason,

And retaliation seems the way,

Which lesson will stay them,

And let love rule the day;

Please, let me not teach them

A hardness of spirit or heart,

Please, let me show them

Where hatred doesn’t have a part;

Let my actions be tempered,

Make my words wrath turning,

Let me lead them in deed,

Now and forever learning;

A softness of heart,

Is not weakness implied,

It is just the shining out,

Of loves flame inside;

Which flickering flame,

I have sought carefully to tend,

Until brightly it burns,

In today’s fiercest wind;

I do not fear times ravage,

Nor put my trust in fate,

I face the future with pride,

I have not taught my children to hate

Ron Simpson, Jr.

October 20, 2001