It sobers me to think
about how we in the present are still
closer in history
to the Civil Rights Movement
than the Civil Rights Movement is
to the Civil War;
how echoes of the problems
we nearly tore the nation apart over
keep clawing back into today,
how racial issues
are just one of the many arenas
we have to revisit
over and over in the battle
for basic human dignity.

But there are
a lot of people in this nation and they
accrue impossible amounts of inertia;
the world
is an incredibly difficult thing to change,
especially for the better,
and that’s why
I try to prioritize the spheres of influence 
I’m gifted to touch.

I hope
after all work done on myself
that the people I meet
can always come away thinking,
That’s what a good man should be.
That’s who a good Christian is supposed to be,
because people need to see these things.
We need to prove
and prove again
that we do still exist.

Beyond that,
change needs time,
which is not the easiest answer to offer
after so much time has already passed.

Don’t despair, though,
because the polarities have been shifting in me
and if one person can start getting better
about lasting positive change,
so can another

or even a million.