Political Orchards

In the irrigation of governance,

fruit-bearing trees yield much to care for.

Why then does Washington avail itself

Almost exclusively to low-hanging fruit,

Ripe with vulnerability?

As stretching for the higher branches

Is seldom a choice,

Targeting the lower branches

Makes defenseless prey

Easy taking for the predators.

Will those of little protection

From the ravages of greed

Find any respite and peace

From patient indulgence,

Knowing they are hanging by Nature’s care

For Humankind?

The vulnerable,

Sweet with innocence

Inevitably bear the weight of promises,

Of protection,

Of care yet falls into the hands

Of those whose only the ease of the harvest.

Here, beneath the canopy,

Shadows of deceit whisper

Of lives impacted by policies,

Of dreams squashed by decisions

Made in chambers far removed

From the roots of the orchard.

Such threats

Cause the fragile,

The ones unable to fight back,

To sway gently in the breeze,

Having to wait for the compulsive hand

To pluck another trophy of conquest,

Or to suffer the falling into total abandonment.

How forgetful this mass of power

That belies the innate harmony of truth

The purpose of Nature

And of Man.

For many,

Self-disciplined behavior and a Renaissance of integrity

Will have to be learned,

For as Forrest Carter uttered in his liturgical sense:

“Take only what you need,

Not what you want.”