Human

Wash the darkness from their skin
They’re not human yet
So poor like dirt from the earth
To be a little more than a charity case.
Is the earth alive?
All the people, all over the world?
If yes, Julia, they are, then why
Why do we treat such pigs as human
And humans as such less than that?
If we played the same hunger games,
If we always remained the same,
Then we’d all be inhuman.
For what makes us human?
Ability to talk, to walk to reason?
For those who can’t, are they naught?
Are they really inhuman?
The dark, the mute, the deaf, the lame,
The slow, the blind, the old, the weak?
We are more than the words we know how to speak.
We are more than the angels we reason fly above us.
We are more than the gravel we walk
Whether dry or wet beneath.
We are.
We are.
With skin as dark as pavement
We walk.
Into the sun to bleach our hair
We walk.
Burn our faces,
All human.
As we move,
All human.
We can learn these truths.
From little ones we learn these truths.

This is one of my poems I wrote in the fall of 2007, probably in October. Julia sometimes asks things that we can't understand, she words questions odd. But this one "Is the Earth alive?" puzzled me and her dad. So we asked "You mean all the people?" and she goes "yes." So, yes, all the people are alive. As I am faced with the possibility of going to Africa for a few months, my mind goes back to this and to the painting I did, of two girls from the DRC. "Wash the darkness from their skin" goes Jars of Clay's song. That may be the only response some people have to the poverty that is so deep there. But its not about racism or skin color, its about justice and everyone all around the world being equally as human and alive.