Lifeguards of morality
As the sun sets, birds keep watch and await swimmers afar. Photo credit: Josie Gonsalves for Public Square Amplified.
I’ve always been scared for the kids
with parents that let them swim
at the beach with no lifeguards
Maybe they think
“It looks calm,” “we did this as kids,” “they’re strong swimmers,” “I’m a strong swimmer“
Maybe the parent can save the kid
or will lose their own life trying
or the ocean will take both
as a dolphin leaps in front of a rainbow
But very few survive by banking on the idea
that they are smarter or stronger than the ocean
which has no morality and contains the depths of depravity
What else do those parents think they know better on
seatbelts, vaccines, doctors appointments, fire safety?
But probably not food
Speaking on Gaza, Omar El Akkad said
"But I can't even begin to conceive,
of a set of actions,
that will somehow absolve me,
of the reality that I killed those kids.”
But it’s not just THOSE kids
Because killing kids is the “American” way
Kids who have cancer, who will now die because we canceled the research to save them
Kids who face fewer restrictions on access to assault rifles than books or abortion
Kids who had their health insurance ripped away, so that a billionaire can keep an extra million dollars they “earned”
Kids who are Trans and are bullied into suicide, because they can legally be told they’re broken
Kids who we bombed in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Somalia, Iraq again, Afghanistan, Gaza, Yemen, among others
Kids who grown men shot to death, because they were “afraid,” often with a state issued gun
Kids who were Jewish, marked return to sender, back to a Holocaust that strove to kill them
Kids who we allowed a “Western nation” to starve to death, while we watched the light leave their eyes.
Or if they’re lucky we just ruin their lives, make them rue every morning they awake
A kid waiting outside a school for a parent who is not coming, will never come again.
A kid going to bed hungry because SNAP was cut, or new burdensome requirements kicked their family off the rolls
A kid who isn’t allowed to read a book because it represents them, and that makes the white kids uncomfortable
A kid who is now one of the largest population of amputees ever
A kid who hasn’t quite starved,
yet
How do we absolve ourselves?
Maybe that’s an overly personal question
Marches? Rallies? Protests? Arrest? Writing? Calling? Confronting?
The lifeguards wrest people from the grip of the ocean
But who saves us,
saves humanity,
from all that we’ve done,
from all the kids we’ve killed?
Can we be saved?
