by Jill Rachel Jacobs
(Ode to an Unseen Migrant During Perilous Times)
When evil comes a knocking,
it may arrive with a vengeance, or
incognito, like some
Bible-thumping
good ol’ Joe,
humping a flag.
("What we've got here is a failure to communicate")
When rage is sadness and
sadness is rage, and it becomes
impossible to distinguish the two,
it’s not surprising we may recoil,
hidden in the shadows of the
reality of what has become
the new normal.
("But I don’t want to go among mad people")
Like a cancer gone undetected,
metastasized,
cell by cell,
dividing
conquering,
licking wounds,
stealing secrets,
tempted by madness,
trying to make sense of
how we have now become
that which we once loathed.
("Thank you, Sir, May I have another?")
When horror is contained,
darkness has lifted,
emerging from the underbelly,
dreams intact,
still blinded by the
innocence of children’s eyes,
resting comfortably;
We wait.
("We have learned to see the world in gasps")
Unencumbered by reason,
justice now a luxury,
in a world unrecognizable,
where compassion no longer prevails.
(How long? An hour, a year, a lifetime or two?)
When will we say when?
When prey becomes the predator,
When captors are held captive,
When cage doors are flung wide open.
Jill Rachel Jacobs is a New York based writer, poet whose poetry has been featured in numerous journals. Her features, commentaries, interviews have been published in The New York Times, Reuters, The Independent, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Post, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chicago Tribune, NPR’s Marketplace and Morning Edition.