If I Told You What I Know

If I told you what I know
You would not believe me
So I will tell you what I do not know
I do not know how bad it will get
Before things get better
How many more we will lose
To drought and flood
Fire and famine
To mass incarceration, mass extinction
To hate crime and domestic violence
To the police, to TV and toxic food
How many more we will lose
To pollution of our waterways and airwaves
And bloodstreams, our livers and rivers
And oceans and imaginations
How many to the war on terror
And drugs and crypts and bloods and thugs
And babies and gays and immigrants
And indigenous peoples
And differently abled and madly genius
And schizophrenically gifted
And the war on thinking
And the war on love
How many more we will lose to the lust for enough money
To bribe God to turn the other way
If I told you what I know
Love is stronger than hate
And truth is more enduring
Than any form that lies can take
If you are not willing to change
I know nothing will change
Life is teetering on the precipice
Of our willingness to let go of what is killing us
And the Earth’s forgiveness for what we have spoiled
Re-generation is the natural order of existence
Destiny will give birth to itself
Respiraling the cycle of the universe’s chest
Rising with each breath
Will we be there to exhale