warning: excessive stream of consciousness b.s. below

[as part of a poetry group that I attend, we get a weekly word or line to ponder. this week's line was: all acts of kindness are lights in the war for justice (j. harjo) the following rant was written earlier today to a poorly recalled version of this line. yes, it still counts.]

free write for this week: something about truth shining light on injustices.

I automatically cringe at the thought of having to write on such a grandiose topic - it could go so vague, so righteous, so cheesy, so self-important and all with so little effort.

The only out is to describe, perhaps, a personal event but, really, what injustices have I suffered? I've taken the brunt of a few minor slights but certainly nothing worthy of rehashing at the risk of whining over petty crap from years ago.

A personal event for someone else? The story of the pan-handler on the corner or the street-worker on the drive home? That greatly runs the risk of over-sentimentalizing (is that a word?) but perhaps that's the challenge.

Perhaps a ?subtler commentary - women's access to emergency contraception?

Maybe my problem with this is the inherent assumption that there is an immediately accessible right and wrong, and it seems unlikely to be able to explore any issue fully enough in a poem to justify proclaiming any conclusions of my own. And it seems rather unpoetic to regurgitate a barrage of heavy-handed info - and, even personalized, it's heavy-handed - so that the readers can form their own opinions.

So, where does that leave me? Letting this stew while I wait for the requisite epiphany. It may happen, it may not. I may just be chicken-shit.

That may be the point.