Winter crept in while we slept.
With stealth it skulks, that cunning frost.
A dark new season draws first air
Then vomits forth its bitter breath.
It oozes in with silken tones,
Through cultured airs and hands concealed.
It seeps through television screens,
A blossom-scented noxious draft.

Or was the bleakness always here?
Did we not exorcise the spite?
The child of privilege and fear
That sponsored genocide of black, by white?
Was it hidden in our nation’s soul,
Still and silent, yet intent?
And when did this parasite awake from sloth
To unleash such malevolence?

Was it at the century’s turn,
With children stole from mother’s breast?
And then again in ninety-two
When razor-wire replaced kind hearts?
Perhaps it stirred much later still
As Cronulla sands were stained in red.
Then frolicked in the Tampa’s wake,
entombing innocents in salty brine and bitter lies.

But must we don the lambskin coat
That hides our wolfish skin beneath?
Must we hunker down and bear
These frigid and polluted winds?
Or might we, in good time, disrobe
And cast away this bloodstained shroud?
And face our history’s bitter squall,
Once more wise and kind, not proud.

Yes, Winter crept in while we slept.
I don’t believe it is innate.
But fear did leave the door unlatched,
That paved the way for hate.