Giving Meaning to Others (Poem)

Giving Meaning to Others

Separate

us not by skins' shades,

names' endings,

but whether

you keep silent while I strike

all nulling words dumb.

© 2011 Maureen E. Doallas

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I'm participating in the #Trust30 challenge, an online writing initiative for which a prompt is posted daily. All of the prompts to date are found here.

This poem, in Shadorma form, is my response to the third prompt, which is from Buster Benson:

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.  ~  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What's one strong belief you possess that isn't shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

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The part of this prompt with which I struggled was "that isn't shared by your closest friends or family". I'd like to think that my "closest friends or family" share most of my perspectives and beliefs. I know that's not the case, nor do I expect it. The strength of any belief depends on willingness to act on it. What separates us is my willingness and your unwillingness to speak out against individual and collective ugliness, incivilities borne of willful ignorance and prejudice that render insignificant those of us not who do not share the same race, gender, ethnic group, religion, or other qualifier: nulling words. Whether the speaking out accomplishes anything is not the point. Wrongs — discrimination, abuse, war, lying, to name just a few — do not become right because we stay silent. 

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My responses to prompts to date:

Zigzag

Fifteen Minutes to Count Down