January 22: Reflection on Roe vs. Wade

I walked with George the other day,
And this is what he had to say:
"If this is what its come to, then
I'm glad that I've passed on.
For the foundation laid so long ago
apparently is gone.
What nation kills its future!?
This bloodshed they call a choice,
they passed this law in Satan's den,
these children had no voice!
I'll now return from whence I came
this place to never see again.
For we who tried to make things just
were of the thought In God We Trust."

Abe Lincoln wept so silently as we
looked out onto the open sea.
And when his tear-streaked face did turn
to me, he asked, "Was nothing learned?
Dred Scott called them nonpersons too;
the law was evil, wrong, untrue!
The price we paid for that grievous error
was a blood-soaked land filled with terror.
The dread now fills me to the core
for my beloved land, now Satan's whore.
For those who kill the ones most pure,
his wrath will come, of this I'm sure.
Turn now from this shadowed land
where once they held their Father's hand.
For the freedoms that we fought for
exist no more within this place
when you sanction murder of the defenseless in our race."

The redwoods stood before us;
their beauty touched the skies.
As Roosevelt struggled up from his chair,
a silk hankie dabbed his eyes.
"It's hard for me to understand this
evil in your midst.
Have freedoms been so distorted that
all reasoning has been eclipsed?
You see it was not so much the Japanese
or Hitler that we fought;
rather their beliefs within our world
and the evil that they wrought.
But this--this slaughter they call a choice--
have people tread so far
from the one we looked to,
the one born beneath the magi's star?
With foreboding in my very soul, I now
must turn away
from this Sodom and Gomorrah that's
been raised within your day."

"For the great day of their wrath has come,
and who is able to stand?" (Revelation 6:17).
This became the unanswered question
as I stood alone upon the land.
And though I see the reality
of how far we've tread from thee,
I take solace in your beloved son
And his infinite mercy.

Joselle M. Kohler
Towson Catholic High School
Towson, MD