Do You Know How the Sky is Blue?

Saula Sheriffdeen O. // SS 3H // President, GCI Press Club (2020/2021)

Do you know how the sky is blue?
T’was not through oil, not paint, nor hue?
Do you know how the kites we flew?
Get to the destinations we view?
T’is through air
Through care!
The love, as humans we share
Is our source of breath, our air,
Humaneness is our source of breath
It is the tree from which we receive
oxygen on earth.
As the lamb depends on pasture
We are bounded by it by nature
Our lives depend on it as human creatures
For its death is a quintessential rapture

But these skies of ours are becoming black
Horror has maneuvered quietude in stacks
Enmity, tribalism, and injustice, have made our lights dark
They grip our souls with fear
When their thunder crack.

Inhumane humans have dehumanized our humanity
Religious difference poses its harms
With the feigning of holiness and trinity
By the preachers of life of eternity
And our air has been pollution
By their radicalism of spirituality.

Why are we painting the skies red?
With dangers, deaths, and dilemma,
You have painted the town red.
Flooding Floyds’ blood!
As if they are not entitled to this world.
Would you please let’s end racism?
And let’s make the sky blue?
Not with oil, not paint, nor hue.
But with care!
Our air!