Beyond Tiny Boxes

My thoughts on Independence day...we may be an independent nation, but we will never be a free nation until each and every person has equal access, opportunity, and freedom from the oppression of racism, discrimination, hatred, and economic disparity.  I really believe this...we will never be free people until we can learn to see beyond the differences between us and embrace the ways that we are the same.  We are all trying to survive, thrive, and belong.  We all simply want to love and be loved...

Beyond Tiny Boxes

Words and images

Harsh and relentless

The devastation of so much

Person on Person violence

Searching for some explanation

For the state of everything.

In a world of tiny boxes

We are labeled and sorted

By the color of our skin

The shape of our bodies

The sound of our language

The size of our bank accounts

The person we love

Difference becomes deadly

When we cannot reach

Beyond arbitrary walls

That separate

And when we fail

In our understanding

That every human heart

Beats the same

c.sharshel

6/17/2015

Sunrise Prayer

Sunrise Prayer

Dawn breaks through the mist

Rising above the river

The edges of the sun

Blurry and soft on the horizon

Catching the current

Of the black water slipping by

My heart whispers lingering grief

Into the silence of this arriving day

Tears mingle with the forming dew

On the ground I sit upon

Until there is no difference

Between the two at all

In this empty, aching morning

A grateful prayer with every breath

May darkness serve to awaken

Illuminated presence everywhere

A brighter light that shines in all beings

To guide and carry us home.

c.sharshel

7/01/2015