by Gil Hoy
1.
I didn’t witness the iceberg-flanked passageways of Antarctica, didn’t spot a kangaroo giving birth to a joey, didn’t see the Beatles live, didn’t descry a proton or an electron, didn’t read all the best books, didn’t see my best friend’s wedding, didn’t read the physics texts that my father taught, didn’t see the world explode in a thermo-nuclear war, didn’t witness democracy crash and burn as of yet, didn’t watch the last polar bear step off the last piece of melting arctic sea ice and drown, didn’t spot God, and didn’t see any sign of Jesus. Instead, I squinted and stared, focused and buckled down, and managed to
2.
See a hummingbird at my feeder fly close to my face, spilled tears with them, closed them in rooms filled with smoke, closed them in rooms filled with bigotry, opened them when instructed to do so, opened them when I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, saw too many 100 plus degree days, saw a police officer put his knee on a man’s neck, saw a criminal become President, saw sycophants flatter him, saw the brainwashed follow him, saw Republican challengers afraid to challenge him, saw his fingerprints taken, saw a mugshot taken, and generally witnessed the greatest threat to American democracy since the founding of the Republic with no way yet to see with what effect and what result.
Gil Hoy is a Best of the Net nominated Tucson, Arizona poet and writer who studied fiction and poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program and The Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Hoy is a semi-retired trial lawyer. His poetry and fiction have previously appeared in Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, Tipton Poetry Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Chiron Review, The Galway Review, Right Hand Pointing, Rusty Truck, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The Penmen Review, Third Wednesday, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, and elsewhere.