I don't know if you've ever loved beyond; American Dreams by James B. Nicola
I don't know if you've ever loved beyond
Source: May 25, 1986. H.C. Brown/Indianapolis News
I don't know if you've ever loved beyond
your "race." Your poems tell of lovers in
the same assorted tones of surface skin
as yours, so I don't know how you'd respond
were I to remind you of what we are:
More alike...than not.... That's Angelou,
and she was right. Beneath the surface you
and I look as alike as closest kin!
Consider how God sees us, from Their star:
The planet's race around the sun, the sun's
around the galaxy—They're everyone's.
That's why, no matter how we think it odd
today, the human race is singular.
And when we love at last will be in God.
American Dreams
Source: NASA/JPL
I had three dreams. Three dreams I'm told I must
tell you. They came on three nights in a row
right after you said what I didn't know
was in you. All that day I was nonplussed
and that night did not sleep but heard, direct
from God, it seemed, “DO UNTO OTHERS AS…”
You know the rest, the Golden Rule, which was
His word once, but so many now reject,
supplanting kindness with red baseball caps.
Next night, I heard, with no uncertainty,
this: “WHATSOEVER YOU DO TO THE LEAST
OF OUR BRETHREN, THAT YOU DO UNTO ME.”
Are you familiar with these words? Perhaps
not. They are also from the Middle East.
The third night, “JESUS WAS A REFUGEE,
REMEMBER!” I woke. It was as if He
was there in my room, yelling silently
(He does love paradoxes) “WHAT PART OF
THESE TRUTHS DO YOU NOT GRASP, CAN YOU NOT SEE?”
His words rang loudly, gently, and with love.
Since human silence is complicity,
He told me to confess these dreams to you,
who like to sign your emails "In His name."
He wants you so to know that He, that we,
support asylum seekers, like His Son,
who fled to Egypt and to Babylon,
and martyrs who to Anatolia
fled; then Corinth; of late, America—
and ask yourself, would you wish Him the same
fate as you do His refugees today?
Faith's more than gratitude. It's what we say
and do. Believe, but also carry through
His truths with love before it is too late.
Should we be meeting Peter at the gate,
he'll ask us all we said, and what we've done.
Author Bio: James B. Nicola’s poetry has garnered two Willow Review awards, a Dana Literary award, seven Pushcart nominations, and one Best of the Net nom. His full-length collections include Manhattan Plaza, Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater, Wind in the Cave (2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018), Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019), and Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense (2021). A Yale grad, he also has enjoyed a career as a stage director, culminating in the nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award.
