There is the cliché, ‘shared humanity’:

but what does it actually mean?

 

‘Tis thrown around;

’tis thrown about,

and battered in severed use.

 

For ‘shared humanity’ is no cuddly

term dragged out to impress in

feel good moments of white excess.

 

It is, as Shakespeare understood:

 

Of all the flowers and all the dread;

Of all the suffering and death in bed.

 

Of all the beauty that lies out and in;

Of all the terror, the ugly, the anger, the sin.

 

Of all the pleasure and pain as one;

Of envy, compassion, joy and fun.

 

Of a person contemplating the state of the world;

Of a community together with tragedy unfurled.

 

The Bard is speaking;

the Bard hath spoke:

‘shared humanity’ is

a weeping sardonic joke.

 

4/4/2020