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
