Reconciliation

Reconciliation

Considering current temperaments,

Has reconciliation a chance?

Is there a place for benevolence

Or will belligerence be the stance?

An examination of hate

Is now in order.

Not a time to be blate

Not a time to stand at the border.

Someone must make

The first move

For the sake

Of calm to improve.

With malice toward none,

With charity for all,

The Great Man who won,

Made the first Reconciliation call.

And, it was General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse who

(Received the Confederate sons

And the surrendered Lee too)

Released the southern boys with their guns.

One hundred years later

General Lee’s amnesty oath was found.

The House and Senate sought the greater,

Higher ground.

Gerald Ford, the President concurred,

Lee’s citizenship was restored.

This action should not be obscured,

But observed as a burial of the sword.

And then there was Mother Emanuel

 On that June night in Charleston

When nine worshipers in an instant knew well

They would die from a small gun.

Afterwards, the brothers and sisters

Of Mother Emanuel prayed and embraced

God’s love. Not as resistors

But with forgiveness, that evil deed they erased.

To forgive and to reconcile is not an

Impossible task to achieve.

Sometimes difficult and complicated to plan,

It still requires the first step to believe.

August 18, 2017