On Politics and Palliative Care

The Right is like a surgical service, 

with an aesthetic of bold, decisive, curative action.  

Out of balance or in excess, it is prone to brutality and mutilation.

The Left is like a medicine service, 

with an aesthetic of wholistic, inclusive, restorative measures.  

Out of balance or in excess, it is prone to wishful or magical thinking.

The patient, though, is very sick.  

See the open, festering sores of wars and hatred

that are not healing and not closing.

Denial predisposes to harmful choices

Those desperate for false promises

fall prey to the lowest among thieves 

So before signing up for the lobotomy

or wheatgrass juice enema

consider the Palliative Care consult

Imagine neither service has the answers

What will the descent look like?

How shall it be faced?

The end may not be near

but it is not too soon to ask the questions

Lest we lose our souls for fear of the crumbling of bones.