A Hushed Whisper in Your Nightly Prayers

Minneapolis 2026 
or Belfast 1972?

Where am I?
Where are we? 
Who are we? 

British soldiers turned to ice. 
Innocents slaughtered. 

I have seen this before:

Ballymurphy;
Derry;
Internment;
Torture;
Nightly raids on Divis Flats; 
Helicopters over the Cave Hill Circular; 
Soldiers pulling slumbering men from their beds
just for being Catholic in West Belfast;
Wanton abuse of civilians
just going about their daily lives; 
It all led to more bloodshed: 

Shankill Road;
Birmingham;
The Old Bailey;
Mountbatten in Sligo;
Omagh;
Guilford;
Manchester;
Milltown Cemetery;
McGurk's Bar; 
Dublin;
Belturbet;
Monaghan; 
The Miami Showband; 
The Old Barns Pub;
Clelland Bar; 
Massereene Barracks;
Cappagh; 
Connolly Station; 
RTE;
Glasnevin; 
A Brighton Hotel;
Harrods;
Canary Wharf,
just to name a few. 

Violence begets violence. 
I don't want to live in fear of this violence
Coming at me from all directions:
Federal Troops from one,
Numerous 
Paramilitaries of various stripes
and temper
from all the others.
No one does. 
Did we learn nothing from 
Three decades of hell in Northern Ireland?

I pray I am wrong,
But I fear something has snapped.
The Price Sisters had Burntollet Bridge.
Who in our country have had their own epiphany
And given up on peaceful protest
and civil disobedience?

They say:
Jesus, Ghandi, Martin Luther King,
Nonviolent civil disobedience,
Bullocks!
Look where it got them!

This is how people get radicalized.
This is how ugly internal strife
begins and stretches on for decades.
A new Northern reticence.
in the Land o' Lakes.

I beg for peace and forgiveness
from everyone.
I would say "all sides" but is there really a side
other than one: American? 

Is it really too late to see each other as human? 
Have we split that far asunder? 
Must we scream for blood?
Has this so-called Christian nation
forgotten that Christ was a man of peace? 

Can we
Save face 
and be saved?

I fear a nightmare
But hope for a dream. 
But for now.
I plead:
Think twice
about your actions
and
Think three times
about the lives of 
Your fellow Americans
no matter their skin color,
religion, uniform,
citizenship status, or political bent.

However you decide
to proceed,
I say,
Godspeed. 
Whatever you decide to do,
I say,
Godspeed and adieu. 
And to riff on the words of 
a genius
from Bellaghy: 
whatever you say,
Say Nothing, 
Except "God Bless America" 
in a hushed whisper
in your nightly prayers;
and ask God that we regain our sanity,
and do so soon.