"Flaming June" painting by Sir Frederic Leighton
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
~Martin Luther King, Jr
A million voices rise
like the smoke of fires
in June.
Voices that had been
stifled by history.
The past can be a ghost that lingers
walking through the
very walls it builds.
It holds down what should be able to rise.
Smoldering what deserves to be spoken out like a flame
reaches up.
How do these lines become so ingrained?
Too stained to be erased?
Burnt beyond the recognition of complacent eyes
in a world of those who choose to sleep in darkness
Let us choose to truly see
let us then listen
and not lay down and
do nothing,
but rise up in equality
awake and ready to
make a difference
together.
Sharing this with Word Crafters for our prompt, "Flaming June"
This issue is rising in Canada too, especially after a young First Nations mother was shot and killed in her apartment on Thursday by a policeman making a "wellness check." They say she was holding a knife, but five shots into a tiny woman was overkill - so many other options, like talking, de-escalating, kindness............we have so much work to do.
ReplyDeleteThat is an utter tragedy Sherry!! There is so much work to be done indeed.
DeleteCarrie, this is beautiful, powerful, timely.... Change is needed. May we all work together to be instruments of change.
ReplyDelete