Wings are broken, legs are hobbled and you won’t look. You have your eyes
locked upon a slippery shimmering silver lining. They say:
Look at the bright side. And you try your best because you’re the optimist. They say:
Namaste (the spirit in me salutes the spirit in you). And you repeat it
because you’re worldly that way. And they nod their heads
in salute right back at you. They say:
An eye for an eye. And you pick up your dagger and aim at the loser’s heart.
When the frogs cry because they are dying what do you say?
When the bees drop out of the sky and the kittens mew from hunger, tell me
what do you say? When dogs fight each other until death, what
could you possibly say? When continental Africa is rendered childless,
when the oil fields dry up in Kuwait, when the Taliban have killed all the women what,
oh what do you say? Look at the bright side? An eye for an eye?
Salute this, you silent observer: salute Peace. Salute the open hand, the open heart.
Render short sightedness and the ego of man a shriveled, forgotten page in our history.
A blemish on the photograph, a glitch in the trajectory. A cloudy eye, lips stitched
together with complacency.

© Tina Zabielski 2011-2019