Don't Drink Bees

I wrote this poem in response to an African American Literature class I took. The professor and all the students were white; and when we discussed the readings, I felt uncomfortable as divisive pronouns of "us" and "them" were tossed around easily. I thought education was a tool to bring people together through understanding, not a tool to divide us through more specific examples of difference.

And then I had another realization. People in glass academic towers look out at the issues of the world and philosophize about them day after day, tossing stones at others who are not involved in solutions, never realizing that they themselves avoid involvement in their own way: speaking with no commitment to real action.

And all these thoughts came together to make this poem.