How Do You? Poem by Carolyn Brunelle

How do you keep a war alive in your heart
for the better part of a century;
stoke those ancient embers
and tend the fires of hatred and misery
'til they burn through to the next century
to foul a new day for future generations?

How do you hold to such bitter revenge;
nurse the infectious boil of your grudge
well beyond the society that created that
in the ancestors that bore you?

How do you fare with that boiler maker
in your gut, sitting there in the darkness
stewing in your own hateful juices?
How do you call that LIFE at all?

How do you look at your maker with
such a degraded soul inside your chest
and still cast eyes of cold indifference
on the world's pain and suffering
when you can't even look in the mirror
and address the ugliness in yourself?