Corners of the World

Worlds rotate within worlds,
Unseen shadows, unknown struggles –
The Afro-Cuban marginalized, smothered by the mainstream;
The radical contradictions that make up Dubai;
The Iraqi child’s family lost to a world of culture he admires.

Humanity –
A story
Of culture, free and suppressed,
Of wealth and poverty,
Of privilege and strife,
Of voices heard and voices silenced,
Of understanding and delusion,
Of those who simply subsist and those who strive for better.

There are differences of perspective,
Of perception and reality;
There are clashes of culture,
And struggles with identity.
The conflicts appear personal –
Internal, religious, each individual’s place in the world.
Yet as the smallness of the struggles is recognized,
The deepest rings of the tree pushed outward,
Each one of us gives way to the story of the people –

A people limited not by country or continent or belief,
But by the power of our minds and the diversity of our perspectives.
A people daunted by questions –
Of love and pain,
Of faith and lies,
Of freedom and bondage,
Of gain and sacrifice,
Of pride and worthlessness,
Of limitations and capabilities in the great cosmic joke that is the universe.

We plan and we exploit;
We forgive and we repent.
When did it become “us” versus “them”?
Humans against humans,
Tormenting without reason,
Afraid to know for fear that the truth
Will remove the blindfold with blinding light.

When will we realize
That our struggle is the same –
The yearning to express and be understood,
To relate, to belong, to do something, to make a difference,
To feel, to live and die without regrets,
To have a taste of happiness, if only for a moment,
To be remembered, to be missed,
To find a deeper meaning before the short journey of life comes to a dead end,
To die in peace.