This poem needs a prologue. It almost isn’t a poem at all. It lacks a rhyme or meter. It comes out of a discussion we had early on with the starting of the Sangria Summit Society, and Poets to Save America. It tries to answer the question of how to bridge the divisions in the United States as they exist today. It is more a discourse between me, you, and our better selves. Despite its lack of form, it is still the song, groaning from my soul, inviting us all to get messy and take the actions needed to save a faltering patient, even if it makes us uncomfortable.
Messy Medicine
I can tell you how to save a person.
I’ve been trained to do it in the harshest of environments.
I can assess if the area they are in is secure and if they are responsive, breathing, or bleeding.
I know what to do in the cases of blunt force trauma, burn, gunshots, lacerations, or a wounded psyche.
I know how to approach a drowning victim, and how to stabilize the neck and spine after a crash or fall.
I can apply a pressure bandage, tourniquet, splint, or brace.
I know how to access risks and implement mitigation to prevent accidents before they happen.
Sometimes all that is needed is showing love and respect even when they don’t feel it for themselves.
Other times you must get your hands dirty in the blood, guts, gore, and shit of their life.
What I want to know is how to save a nation.
When the problem is toxicity in the body politic, the symptoms are plain but treatment is messy.
The factions are spewing vitriol, more concerned with the spoils of victory than the injuries that they cause.
We need charcoal in our bellies to sop up the venom, and a purgative to evacuate our systems.
The patients have to heal themselves, but it is so hard to do with minds clouded by political poison.
The treatment causes pain as we realize the mess we are in is a mess we made for ourselves.
Our addictions are killing us.
We are committing self-genocide.
The resulting infection is resistant to our normal arsenal of wonder drugs.
We over-used patriotism, nationalism, and exceptionalism in our heyday.
Our faith is shattered.
We stopped believing in the ethics that made us great and started arguing over the definition of “is”.
We legislated ourselves into a coma-
Allowed charlatans to convince us that their partisanship was as good as the time-tested remedies.
We started believing that parts of our society could win while others were losing-
That our kidneys meant more to us than our liver, our heart more than our brain.
In truth, the heart is fickle and the brain is confused.
In our gut we know we are filled with toxic shit,
And we just keep eating garbage.
The path to health for the nation starts in the individual.
We must reject partisanism and accept wholism.
We must first be good people, good neighbors, good stewards, and good planners.
The resiliency and vitality of the nation comes when we the people are healthy-
When we discipline ourselves to acting in ways that are healthy and wholesome for the nation,
When we put others first, do more good for more people,
And prepare for a better future by being better ourselves.
Classical humanism is what is needed to suppress the ill effects of willful ignorance.
Civility is the cure for political discord.
If we refuse to accept a discourse of division, we will begin to unite.
We get closer together when we stop walking farther apart.
The road to wellness starts with a single step, a single individual, repeated 330 million times.
When we reject the concept that one part of the body politic can survive while another falters,
We start our healing.
Our body has a lot of vomit and excrement that we have to purge and replace with something healthy.
The first step is simple and so very hard.
Love your fellow humans.
In spite of yourself.
