I cannot plead my case,
for no case I have as a
white man living this
privileged life full when
I don’t feel this privilege
sitting next to me at all.

Perhaps I lack the insight
or the courage to understand
the jaggedness of Other’s lives
when mine seems so smooth
and I’ve never laid on a street
with no where good to go.

Maybe I should apologise for
who I am as a man, as a
white male, and for what I have,
or back away having nothing
to say but this is the day
that the Lord hath made, and
I will think no more about
who I am and the heritage
that brought it all to this point.

Then I see my bald head and
note the flesh that was once
so young drooping lower each
day and I remember a world
when I was young that didn’t
always see people the way
I see them rainbowed today.

So, I am who I am, this colour
pale against a coloured horizon,
and I age and droop and
remember what was and the
life I have today built from
another age, and I think of
silences and gaps and what I
missed and now I wish to catch.

And as a privileged white
male I plead not my case but
the cause of all humanity in
this age, on this changing planet,
with passion, without rage, with
hope through the Looking Glass
and in the time I have before rest.

 

14/2/2023