One year later

A Lament:

I used to be someone who could be called “the eternal optimist.”
Hope… HOPE… that we, as humans, could “get it” eventually.
I am not a pessimist. I am not a realist.
Still, I reach for hope,
But it is mixed with despair all too often.
Hope that we, as white Americans, wake up,
That we SEE folks like George Floyd,
That we HEAR what people of color go through,
Listening to their LAMENT and pain.
Despair when we still do not listen,
When we decided to double down on our whiteness and control,
Again and again and again.

Still, I reach for hope even in my anger and despair.
Hope that we can still wake up and stay awake.
Hope that we can quit grasping for false power and demand change within ourselves.
Oh, to be done with our grasp for supremacy and to be done with our false fears.
To SEE George Floyd… and Ahmaud Arbery… and Breonna Taylor…
And to reach out inside of recoiling.
To reach out and decide to draw close instead of fall back.
To reach toward justice, toward compassion, toward love.

Say his name… one year later.