The Grudge (Texas)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: CLIMATE CHANGE

The Grudge

 

For as long as memory holds

I have held a grudge against

The great state of Texas

The state that gave us George Dubya Bush

And the never-ending wars

The state that gave us Enron

As its energy consortiums skimmed

Billions upon billions from California

Oregon and Washington

 

I have held a grudge against Texas

For holding back progress

For mass incarceration

For climate change denial

For immigration hypocrisy

For corporate corruption

For institutional inequality

For a cowboy mentality

 

I have held a grudge against Texas

For Lee Harvey Oswald

The book depository

And the infamous grassy knoll

(who could ever forget

the grassy knoll?)

 

I held onto that grudge a long time

Before I realized

The grudge was holding onto me

Before I understood

People are pretty much the same

Texans are not to blame

So much as greed

And hatred

And envy

And the need for revenge

The need to be better than

Foolish Texas pride

(not so different than California’s)

It’s the way we were raised

What we learned in school

What our parents handed down

Along with family photos

Stories and fairy tales

 

We were taught the ways of war

Of us versus them

Of good against bad

Of north against south

Of east against west

Red against blue

And black against white

But somewhere along the way

We picked up empathy

When the quake hit LA

It shook us all

When Paradise went up in flames

We all cried

When tornadoes ripped across

The Oklahoma plains

We shared the horror

When Katrina struck New Orleans

We all suffered

When the towers fell

We all mourned

 

Now Texas feels the blow

Of a relentless winter storm

And Texas is not alone

We must all carry the burden

We are Americans

We are humans

We are inhabitants of a small planet

We are one