With great haste, but still too late
By Laura Mazza-Dixon
Evidence accumulates
as one by one, those who suffered
while the truth was silenced
begin to find the courage to speak.
Congress tells us that all will be done
with care, new revelations investigated,
whistleblowers protected.
On another channel, others deny
all wrongdoing, again and again,
mounting their defense
in louder and louder voices.
You can choose to believe
those on one side or the other.
There is no middle ground.
In between the news reports,
the advertisements for the latest
cars and medications run nonstop.
We cook, listen to the news, eat dinner,
and wash the dishes, wondering
how and if we are responsible,
knowing that even if we all agreed
about what is true, and even if
we acted with great haste,
it would be too late to save the people
driven from their homes in Syria yesterday,
today, tonight and tomorrow,
too late for the people swept
off the islands of the Bahamas,
too late to retrieve the glaciers
dissolving into the sea,
too late for the child
drowned in her father’s arms
in the river between danger
and the promised land.
A Pushcart Prize nominee, Laura Mazza-Dixon has been featured in both the Hartford Courant Poet’s Corner and the Simsbury Community Television’s Speaking of Poetry Series. Her poetry collection, Forged by Joy, was published in January of 2017. More information on it is available on the Antrim House website (www.antrimhousebooks.com/mazza-dixon.html). Mazza-Dixon lives in Granby, CT where she directs the Windy Hill Guitar Studio. She is co-artistic director of The Bruce Porter Memorial Music Series and has performed on classical guitar and viola da gamba across New England. She also organizes the Poetry at the Cossitt series at the F. H. Cossitt Library in North Granby, CT, and has organized two poetry workshops titled “Words That Matter: Courageous Conversations on Race” for the UCC churches in Granby.
Photo by Heather Zabriskie on Unsplash.