Unity

Paul/Adobestock

POETRY FOR INCLUSION

Day after day
Division seems
Beyond repair

And the floods
of biases declare
A national disaster

Hearts destroyed
By hubris
And breathless
Lung filled
with the smoke
of greed

Homes lose
their moral foundation
Windows stained
With inflexible thoughts

But the sun still rises
And hope shines
For another day
In a world seeking
Unity

Breaking news
Heightens trauma response
Fear lingers and plays
A game of fight
Flight or freeze

Centuries of despair
Moan for justice
And invite reform
At a hare’s pace

And evil does
Not surrender
It’s plight

But the sun still rises
And hope shines
For another day
In a world seeking
Unity

Some days
Humanity is dormant
And some days it
Erupts with pomp
And circumstance

Perhaps our current state
Will melt with raindrops of
Reconciliation

And just maybe
Dissonance will bend
Toward harmony

But the sun still rises
And hope shines
For another day
In a world seeking
Unity

Dr Clark is an outpatient psychiatrist at Prisma Health-Upstate and clinical associate professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Greenville. He served on the American Psychiatric Association’s Task Force to Address Structural Racism Throughout Psychiatry, and he currently serves as the Diversity and Inclusion section editor and advisory board member for Psychiatric Times^TM.