Counter/Protest

“No tear gas necessary – We’re conservatives.”
-sign at a counter demonstration to an anti-war protest, April 2002

I.

No tear gas necessary –
We conserve our tears
save them for others like us,
for property rights,
and God’s honor.

The ones we do spare
we plant in a straight
and narrow path along our
boundaries
watering gorse bushes
and poison ivy.

II.

Our tear ducts are exhausted
our wells of kindness parched
from doing double duty
washing thorns out of the feet
of starving children
tortured villagers
and ruined lands

For us, tear gas will be necessary
to send us toppling back
from revolt into grieving,
too blinded to keep tugging
at the gorse bushes’ roots.

But you should know -
our tears too are fertile,
and we leave them
everywhere we go.