< Codey’s World < Blue < Poetry < Us and Them
Title: audio Us and Them
Author: Blue Ben W. Narrator: Blue Ben W.
Kind: Poem Type: MP3 Time: 00:02:29 Size: 3.42 MB

Us and Them

By Blue / Ben W. ~ 2005-12-09

  1. Ones and twos and groups of us and them.
  2. How big a group is “us?”
  3. How big a group is “them?”
  4. Why does it matter anyway?
  5. Just who is us or them?
  6. Are we so small that they don’t fit?
  7. Do we become a group of one alone?
  8. How many are groups of “them?”
  9. How shameful to divide, exclude, deny “them” as part of “us.”
  10. How wrong and lonely too.
  11. How unlovely and unloving.
  12. The next time you act like they are not welcome,
  13. Not good enough for us,
  14. Consider if we are “them” and they are “us.”
  15. And when you tell me or him or her,
  16. That “they” are not good enough for “us,”
  17. Please pause to contemplate:
  18. You just might find,
  19. That I and he and she,
  20. Are they instead of we or you.
  21. And stranger still, oh Stranger,
  22. You just might find that
  23. You are one of them,
  24. Not one of us,
  25. Nor even one of you.
  26. So learn this lesson well,
  27. Stranger friend or friendly stranger:
  28. There is no us nor them,
  29. No him or her or it,
  30. Nor even you or me,
  31. Nor one alone.
  32. We are all us and all them.
  33. We are one whole together,
  34. Whether holy or unholy.
  35. So therefore say to strangers,
  36. “Hello, guest;” and “Hello, friend.”
  37. For they are “us” and we are “them.”
  38. Stranger friends and friendly strangers be.
  39. Or as a wise and weary Pogo possum said,
  40. “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”