Not One Is Ever Excluded Poem by RIC BASTASA

it is not actually a matter of who wins or who loses,
not even a matter of who sins or who does not

to know who wins, or who sins,
one needs a judge

but who really believes in a judge who like you is as frail and as human as
i am
as we are

did they not tell you you that i am because we are what we are?

i do not wish you to understand me
neither i to understand you, that would be an enclosure,
and enclosures are
asphyxiating

there is a play field leveled for all of us
it is beyond sin and grace, beyond wrong and right,
beyond winning and losing

it is where we meet
where we talk
where we smile and sit and drink together
where we laugh where we can even choose just to be silent

where we feel that we are one
no competition just plain humanity
or divinity
if you want to coin it

i like it that way.
No name just persons
no place just a field, a vast expanse where no one

not one
is ever excluded.