Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Our Berlin Walls


BIFOCAL UNIVISION
http://bifocalunivision.blogspot.com
supplied the prompt


OUR BERLIN WALLS
(In the style of Patience Strong)

Do you recall
The Berlin Wall
And its Israeli counterpart?
*
It is in an innocuous street like this
That such monstrosities start.
'My house', 'my yard', 'my property'
Declared for all to see.
A blocking-out of others;
A desire for privacy.
Now privacy is well and good
In certain times and places;
We all desire some modesty
In very definite cases.
But racism is a very high fence
That's very hard to scale;
And racism results in people
Fighting tooth and nail.
All of us feel a qualm or two
When facing someone 'strange';
Different from us in many ways,
Someone outside our range.
But the putting-up of fences
Is not the way to go.
Start by looking over your fence
And simply saying
'Hallo'.
*
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DECEMBER 2010
(And it still applies, in 2011!)

Oh December, December! Dids't thou forget!
We were promised 'heat' and you've given us 'wet'!
Australia is a drought-and-fire land!
Just now we look as green as Ireland!
Rain! Rain! Rain! We're completely sodden!
We're a dry country! But thou hast forgodden!
*

6 comments:

Bubba said...

Good fences make good neighbors, as the saying goes... but I don't think the same applies to giant walls.

Thanks for playing M.M.P.P. again, Brenda!

Unknown said...

So well written. I enjoyed this.

Word Tosser said...

FENCES.. great post, so right on..
We hate what we fear, fear of the unknown. Why we don't address the fear and find out what it is? I don't know the answer. But so many jump to hate, instead of knowledge and understanding.

Merry Christmas, in case I don't make it back round your way again before then..

Dave King said...

I like this very much: a judicious mix of humour with the serious.

Beverly said...

I really like this one. Fences have their place, but that place shouldn't be in our hearts. We need to reach out to each other.

Thanks for sharing.

Kathe W. said...

I remember when the Berlin wall went up and when it came crashing down- fences/walls should be low enough for the neighbors to be good neighbors - hands across the borders so to speak.