Soapbox

The Politics of Bread

This poem won first prize one year in the Ohio Poetry Day competition. It is also a song. A friend described it as "Blowin’ in the Wind" for the 21st century." No way I would go that far, but it’s not half-bad, if I do say so myself. so now I think of it as "Emily Dickenson meets Bob Dylan"  with apologies to both of them.

I never saw a sunrise whose colors could portend
What good or ill the sun would see,
And how its day would end.

I never saw a sky of blue that cared what deeds we sow.
We spend our lifetimes reaching up-
It does not glance below.

I never saw a mountain to benefit by man;
Where banks and steeples and logging roads
Improved upon God’s hand.

I fear there is no justice that is truly blind, blind to one and all,
Whose scales will mete a portion same
To the mighty and the small.

I never saw a war in which the cost of victory fell
On those who sound the battle cry,
For they do profit well.

There is no pain or illness dark upon the face of earth
That benefits from promises,
Or patriotic words.

And there ne’er flew a flag, no matter how bright
That could turn back a bullet in swift, deadly flight.
Each action moves onward, as clear waters flow
And a flower, once picked, cannot grow.

I have not known a frightened soul, about to lose his life
Concerned with the religion
Of the hand that wields the knife.

I never saw a hungry child or mother with bowed head
Who cared for fiscal policy
Or the politics of bread.