Stepping On The Cracks

It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers

While I was building neat
castles in the sandbox,
the hasty pits were
filling with bulldozed corpses

and as I walked to the school
washed and combed, my feet
stepping on the cracks in the cement
detonated red bombs.

Now I am grownup
and literate, and I sit in my chair
as quietly as a fuse

and the jungles are flaming, the under-
brush is charged with soldiers,
The names on the difficult
maps go up in smoke.

I am the cause, I am a stockpile of chemical
toys, my body
is a deadly gadget,
I reach out in love, my hands are guns,
my good intentions are completely lethal.

Even my
passive eyes transmute
everything I look at to the pocked
black and white of a war photo,
how
can I stop myself

It is dangerous to read newspapers

Each time I hit a key
on my electric typewriter,
speaking of peaceful trees

another village explodes.

- Margaret Atwood

Phew! The first of these poems for Lent that I actually copied out in full - and it's not even my favorite one so far! It's just that I finally found time to do it!

However, I do think it is a very dramatic portrayal of why 'It is dangerous to read newspapers' - or at least it can be if we don't let ourselves become desensitized to the atrocities we see there.

It can feel very uncomfortable to reflect on our own responsibilities and what our involvement should be. As the commentator asks,
"On whose behalf are the unending wars of our generation being fought, and do we let them touch us?"
As we are often reminded over here in the USA at least - the wars are being fought to "protect our freedom and way of life". We must not distance ourselves and say it has nothing to do with us. We are a part of the human race and therefore share in the responsibility.
She finishes with a question that needs some thought, "What does it mean to open ourselves to pray in a world where we are aware of these things?"

- Heavy stuff!

Mayson was very patient in being my model for this blip, but judging by his expression and his clenched fist, I think he was getting a bit frustrated with it all!