PEGGY TROTTER DAMMOND PREACELY

We have been through so much this past week with what is happening in Portland and in other cities around the country, only to have it capped by an oncoming hurricane, with a gale-wind fury only matched by the unconstitutional conduct by unidentified forces, and with that in mind here is my latest piece...

STORM

by Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely

It is within striking distance now.

Who will be swept up...

unmasked, unmarked, be the unknown...

be next

amidst our already clouded nation

where the reign of a true democracy is at peril.

Where the insistent call for harmony  

does not melt the little fires burning everywhere.

Where braver folk are muzzled

And the best of us are puzzled

are called upon to choose or loose

what’s left

for the rest of us.

Oh, great Mothering, hovering spirit…

guide us!

If only we had truly listened to the rhetoric

understood the meteoric

rise to power of this great divider.

Could we have changed the trajectory of this storm

trooping and bifurcating its intentions

which has so separated our nation?

This storm is in our midst.

Is not in the far distance.

Will we just let it brew, let it skew

us beyond our common covenant?

Will we just abide and disregard this tumultuous disruption

And ignore this oh so inconvenient…but truly necessary interruption?

Or will we claim this storm?

Allow it to lead us to inevitable conversation,

to the most difficult of coalescing, congregating, convening.

Will we insist upon the Great Coming Together?

Will we answer this summoning,

hear the insistent drumming?

Form a wider circle where all can speak.

Where all are heard.

We must behold and begin a collective reckoning

that we can no longer ignore,

until we forge a national solution

before the storm

trumps all we are—

...and all we know.

© 2020 Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely. All rights reserved.