Lessons Learned

“A date which will live in infamy”

From FDR speech 

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, 

On the isle of Oahu, Hawaii

I am amazed at the difference

In the lessons learned

By different people

From one catastrophic event

Some look at 9/11

And see the lesson of fear

Some see the lesson of vigilance 

Other see the lesson of readiness

Some learned hated

While others merely added to theirs

Oh, I did see the danger of hatred

Even more so, the danger of a seething rage

Born of a seed of hurt, real or imagined

Planned or accidental, a seed left to germinate

I prefer the lessons I learned

In the midst of overwhelming fear

I learned the power of community 

In the growing ‘us against the world’ attitude

I learned the lesson of globalism

In the face of despair and dispiritedness

I felt the encouragement of the world

You can hold on to the hatred

I'll hold on to the hope

You can cling to the fear

I’ll still grasp at the courage

You can live in the angst

I will walk with serenity

You can look for the differences

I’ll look for our commonalities

I will hold the lessons I learned

In the faces of 9/11

© Ron Simpson Jr.

September 11, 2020

I, With Privilege

I, accepting of all

Beholding color

But not seeing it

Beholding gender

But not regarding it

Beholding orientation 

Sexual or otherwise

But not judging it

I, striving for fairness

I, of privilege born

You know,

The right color

The right gender

The right time

Afforded as a right

As others call privilege 

I, not asking

But not denying

Education

Born of privilege 

Opportunities 

Born of the same

Expectations

Driving me upward

Never equally given

Simple motivation

Still a privilege 

Of my choice-less birth

I, unable to stop

Being white

Being male

Being straight

What can I do

I must use these

To shine a light

To make a difference 

To bring a change

I, with a voice

Speaking out

And saying the names

You know them well

I, with hands

Raising them

In defense

Of the oppressed

I, with feet

Marching

Stepping out

Stepping up

I, with privilege 

Can not refuse 

To see

To hear

To act

I, with privilege

Must be the difference

I, with privilege 

Must bring the change

Because, only I

With privilege 

Can 

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

September 3, 2020

Keepers

How quaintly they cry

About history erased

When their monuments

To hatred are removed

This is our heritage

Their new battle cry

Clinging to the banner

Holding power by fear

Politicians rally

Fear of losing the base

When we control their fear

We control their lives 

No more American dream

Just a fascist nightmare

Throngs refusing to wake

Sleepwalking through life

Sides must be chosen

The language must attest 

We group them categorically 

In a tribe of ‘thugs’ or ‘racists’

We ease our conscience 

We label them ‘terrorists’

We proudly proclaim our title

We are just ‘nationalists’

We are protecting our rights

We have become our possessions 

We have sold our souls

For a bastardized star and stripe

Giving our history a whitewash 

Giving our religion a new direction

Our protectors become our keepers

As we blindly follow the piper

We have abandoned

Our foundational ideology

“We, the people”

Have narrowed the scope

We ignore our crimes

And criminalize resistance 

We forcefully silence the oppressed 

With bullets and gas grenades

We have returned our state

And became a nation at war

Protecting the new god we serve

The cruel taskmaster ‘greed’

Property over people

Wealth over poverty

We never freed the slaves

We just became slaves ourselves

Like the bird in a cage

We have freedom 

As long as we stay away

From the gilded bars

We take our comfort

In this system we serve 

Like a frog in a pot

But the water is soon to boil

America was birthed

In a revolt against oppression 

Our masters were afraid

Our taste of freedom

Was out of control

Now

Not even a quarter of a millennium 

We have become our oppressors

Our noble experiment is ignoble 

We pad our resume with war crimes

We moved from a land of opportunity 

To a land filled with opportunists 

Seeking to build our dreams

On the broken backs of others

We worship the tokens

While trampling the ideals

We revere the rich

And marginalize the poor

We scream and stream unintelligible lies

To cover the cries of our victims

We vomit out the vitriol of our lives

Thinking our fear sounds like strength

Time will reveal us, eventually

As the jesters and fools we are become

Parading our ignorance loudly

Spoon fed fear by our masters 

It is time we shake off the shackles

For, though we have adorned them

And grown comfortable wearing them

They are still the shackles of slavery 

We have become the ‘house nigger’

As we work the new plantations of the rich

As we fill their coffers with gleaming gold

And beg for crumbs they cast aside

It is time 

To cast off the chains of identity labels

To break down dividing wall mortared with fear

To become ‘We’ instead of ‘them’ and ‘they’

It is time to understand 

The takers take from us all

The oppressors crush us all

‘We have met the enemy and they are us’

The dream has not been taken

It was never really offered

Well, not unilaterally 

The American Dream has a caveat

If we are to rise from this mire 

We will never be able

If we keep tearing others down

We will only rise, together

Cast off your shackle

Cast aside your label

Lift others so they may lift you 

Become again your brother’s keeper 

This was the plan

“We, the people”

To be the keepers

Not of wealth and riches

Not of power and dominion

But, to be the keepers

Keepers of humanity

Keepers of ideals

Keepers of justice 

Keepers of every brother

Keepers

© Ron Simpson Jr

August 29, 2020

The Telling Rings of Time

 Dendrochronology is the science of tree rings. It is so much more than merely telling it’s age. Based on the thickness of these growth rings, Dendroclimatology can even tell us the past weather the tree endured. 

The Telling Rings of Time

The telling signs of age

The beginning of a wrinkle

The first noticeable gray hairs

Some things thickening

Some things thinning 

The appearance of ‘readers’

Presbyopia (age related farsightedness)

We have become warriors

In this battle with our age

Armed with notions and potions

Contacts, creams and dyes 

Vitamins and elixirs 

All the weapons

In our war with our age

Deeper than the ‘rings’

Of wrinkles and graying hair

Of aches and pains

Of changes in hearing and seeing

Are the deep set scars 

Of sorrow, of heartache, 

Of heartbreak, of loss

These are the telling rings

Even in lives well lived 

The effects of emotional burdens

The residue of sorrow’s wounds

The dullness and dross

All written boldly in life’s rings

Each year

Each loss

Each sorrow

Each joy

Each step

Adding to the rings 

In my eyes

In my hands

In my gait

In my heart

In my soul

In my life

In my ‘rings’

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

August 23, 2020

Untainted Words

Let our words be pure

Lest we influence unduly

The tender shoots

The idealism of youth

The only hope of a future

In sight, there is no end

The constant streaming glut

Hardly a word not influenced 

Weighted by a finger on the scale

Tipping justice in their favor

A polluted sea of politicians 

Adding agendas to every phrase

Filling every space between lines

With their heartless blackened taint

No words left untouched

In churches dotting every corner

Extolling love with words of hatred

And seeking peace with words of war

If you will faithfully love our God 

These not like us, you must hate

Each generation finding their own words

Dipped in and dripping vicious vitriol 

Giving no respect for generations past

Offering no hope for one coming next

Only words, putrid and dying, they convey

Words of science relinquishing heart

Words of religion abandoning hope

Words of politics fanning raging flames

Words in a continuous warfare

Bruised, battered, and bloodied 

Poets

Find words

Untainted words

Unbridled words

Find our hope

From the Greek, “to make”

From the Sanskrit, “he gathers, heaps up”

What other purpose is more noble

A poem will not stave off the cold

Nor protect your eyes from the sun

But words 

Untainted words

The pillars of true reason

The builders of an altruistic society

Spring from the poet's heart

“Take with you words

Render the calves of your lips”

(From the prophet, Hosea)

Find the pure words

Change the hearts of kings

While politicians argue

And preachers rage

And scientists study

And scholars debate

Poets must write

Untainted words

Words against injustice

Words against hatred

Words against violence

Untainted words

Speak

Sing

Pray

Words 

Untainted

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

August 22, 2020

This Temporary Goodbye

It’s never easy to say goodbye

Especially to someone you’ve known

For the entirety of your life

How do you stop hearing 

The beats of the heart

Which you have always heard 

If I could rewind and stop time

I would go back a few days

And there linger a while longer

I would touch your hand

And feel its warmth once more

I would hear the familiar sounds

Of life in your breathing

I would feel your arms around me

Giving the comfort only you could

I would put my heart

Next to yours one more time

In time

I will feel your warmth again

I will hear you near me

I will embrace your comfort

And within my own heart

I will hear and feel

A familiar rhythm

In time

Another time

You will be with me

As always

Today, however

I will struggle

With this temporary goodbye

For Dorothy & Theosa 

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

August 20, 2020