Oh, I Could Dig It If Everybody Was Like Me.

by Ernie McCray

One often hears
how dull life would be
if everyone was the same
but I beg to differ,
thinking non-braggadocious-ly
that it would be flat out cool
if everybody acted as I do,
like woke up everyday
and, no matter what else they did that day,
took time out to read,
to pet a dog,
and wrote some prose and poetry,
some of it for a progressive blog,
and listened to and danced to
some music that allowed
them to breathe in the day soulfully and deeply,
so thankful to be alive,
having engaged, during that day,
in no shucking and jiving,
no half-stepping or backstabbing or deriding or conniving,
no evil intent,
so not content
with the world the way it is
that they would dare to try to change it
in any way they can,
people who can root for the home team
without booing the visiting team;
people who acknowledge
that everyone needs
to be seen
and understood
and to not be granted
that kind of human respect
is a crying shame.

People who don’t use racial slurs
or color people different than them
with the same brush
and wince
upon hearing women referred to
as bitches and hos.

People who see children as the keepers of hope
and involve themselves
in making sure they’re
taught life’s truths
in their schools,
and strive to lessen
the military’s overly-heavy presence
on their campuses
to keep that hope alive,
all to say folks like me
would be dedicated
to helping our precious young ones,
who will soon have the burden
of changing the world,
to do so with notions
in their minds of how that might be done
in a spirit of making peace
on a hostile planet
that often seems as though
any progress towards
making it better
is rapidly unraveling,
becoming hopelessly undone.

Oh, I could dig it if everybody was like me
and I’d welcome that sameness
with arms opened wide
with unsullied glee
as people like me
are moved by love,
something we were once reminded
in a song,
that there’s
“just too little of.”

But a more loving world is what
we’ve forever wished for
and worked towards
and can’t get enough of.

We pursue our hopes and dreams
unapologetically
and embrace anyone who wants to join us
thankfully.

Immediately.