Watershed– A Poem

Last night in nearby Mt. Horeb, I had the privilege of playing “We Shall Overcome” on my harmonica and reading my newest poem. There comes a time when voices feel futile and words ring hollow—when poetry is the only answer to the deep, gut-level sickness of fear and loss so many of us carry. 🎶

Dear, dear Minneapolis. You were the home of my youth. For seven years, I patrolled your streets and protected your people. Now, I see the truth in William Gibson’s words: “The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed.”

And so it goes, Minneapolis. A watershed moment. A breaking point.

Watershed

Pushing ninety now. recollecting ghosts of the sixties—alabama, georgia, mississippi—all burning in my blood. the blood of a 20 something year-old student, husband, father, city cop, twisting like a wire in a high wind. torn between the badge and the fire. justice smoldering all these years.

Now, in these last years of my life—a priest, former cop, a follower of jesus—i hear his rebuking words about those “lukewarm.” those of us who wish to do nothing, shirking away from the face of tyranny, staying quiet, staying safe. god is nauseous; he spits us out. i feel the disgust for spiritual cowardice—for those who run from the winnowing fire. those who are neither hot nor cold – spittle!

Is that not most of us? staying in the middle while our neighbors are taken away in the night? we choose to make no “waves.” we succumb. we get along, foolishly thinking this is a passing phase — waiting for others to act. is not silence complicity? smell the stench? for god’s sake, call 911.

But when you do, who will show up? will our city police stand to protect us from kidnapping? assault? even death? or will they stand by and watch? ask them. we need to know. for if they choose to be spittle, who then will stop the assault? the killing? no cop stepped in to save renee or alex. listen—it’s that bad. it is! no more spittle. we, the observers, must now be the actors. we will bear witness.

I speak to white men like me—not because we are special, but because we are not. after a privileged lifetime of supremacy, our sun has shifted. i am beginning to understand the chilling wind of racism on a body of color. i get it now: the unearned safety, the thinner skin, the “whiteness” of how we act when stopped by police.

I remember germany. i remember martin niemöller, who realized too late that no one was left to speak for him because he didn’t speak for others. I remember the sixth of january, you should, too—the mob, the insurrection, the first torrent of white house lies.

I remember the deaths of those who “did not obey.” i wrote their names in a great litany: michael brown, eric garner, philando castile, bre-onna taylor, george floyd, and now—renee good, and now alex pretti. a decade of death; a lesson to be learned that wasn’t. look, america. can’t we be better?

I spent years teaching cops—midwestern white kids in college—how to be guardians. my conservative colleague says to me: “if those people just obeyed, they’d be alive!” really? do you know nothing of our history etched on the blood-stained rope of 4,000 lynchings? the lash? the cage? the broken families? the bodies?

I prepared to teach them about the plantation-based economy, the slave patrols, james baldwin, and dr. king. even malcolm. it became the class i never taught. so out they went—smug, shiny, unknowing white faces—off to hours on the range and mere minutes on de-escalation and duty to intervene, never understanding that their most effective weapon rested on their shoulders.

My writing continues—blue gospels calling out the “right to life” that ignores government homicide. if we employ people to kill for us, shouldn’t we have a say in how they do it? perhaps, i suggest only when absolutely necessary? a standard our european allies embrace.

How about renee? how about alex? was there execution absolutely necessary? they’ll now be two more among the thousand killed by police this year. and the thousands that die each year. is that acceptable? our high rate of killing is our moral failure. our shame.

So, have we become a killing field? thousands of masked thugs raid minneapolis—more agents than city cops. who’s next? do we wait for our car windows to be smashed? dragged out through the broken glass? chemicals sprayed in our face? knocked to the ground? because we said “no” – no to being manhandled, jailed, deported? even killed? we hear the wailing of children and their mothers. have we had enough? enough?

We cannot accept high crimes and deception by our government. we cannot allow anyone—not even a president—to be outside our laws. read project 2026 — an autocrat’s handbook. are your papers in order? better watch what you say. who’s next?

Look around. masked wannabee-cops run amuck in camouflage gear –no nametags, calling themselves “police.” i know police. they are not police—not more than a snake is a sheepdog. they are charlatans who ignore the sacred duty of those who guard and protect our nation and our constitution. our rule of law?

Now what? how do we resist? the answer is in our history and founding documents. our founders knew despots and their tyranny; they left us the right to speak out, peacefully assemble and protest our government.

I lay awake recalling an old vision of mine. it flows out of the jim crow south, out of greensboro lunch counters, out of my aging heart. resist, it says. do not cooperate. be wise. be gentle. question authority. act in tens, hundreds, thousands, and more. “there’s a man with a gun over there… telling me we’ve got to beware.”

In this dream, i see my neighbor—a roof-fixer, a father of four. our broken system wants to take him away. he is in the bully’s crosshairs. but he is my neighbor! i show up. i sit. i am not alone. we do not move.

A hundred on the sidewalk. a thousand around his home. a flood of committed, peaceful bodies. more of us show up like sand on a beach. we slow things down. the roundup shudders. stops. sand… sand everywhere, grinding in everything. we are strong in what we have learned in the teachings of gandhi, king, and jesus. we are ready. prepared.

At first, they ignore us. then they mock us. defame us. then they come for us with cattle cars and masked thugs to intimidate, arrest and cage us. and when they do all this—they lose. yes, they lose!

And we? we win. we will overcome this great evil. we will be the people we have always yearned to become. 

We will be heroes. heroes!

Amen. so be it!