By Dr. J. Kerkula Foeday
My Weekly Poetic Reflection, Issue 24, Saturday, August 15, 2026
Before we ask who is wrong, let us first ask ourselves what we are doing wrong that must be made right.
We are strange creatures …
We pray for rain,
Then become clouds over another’s harvest.
We ask for mercy when our knees touch the earth,
Then become stone when another kneels before us.
We cry for justice when the wound is ours,
Yet call the knife a necessary tool when it cuts another.
Such is the contradiction of the human heart:
We hate the fire,
Yet sometimes become the flame.
Tonight, the old house trembles.
A rope is stretched across its corridors,
And unseen hands pull from opposite ends.
Each hand whispers:
“I am right.”
But the house does not ask who is right.
The house asks:
“Who will stop the pulling before the roof collapses?”
For when everyone pulls,
Even the strongest rope eventually becomes a noose.
I stand at the doorway
With three children beneath one roof.
One holds the keys.
One carries the burden.
One carries tomorrow.
I cannot love one and abandon the others.
So I remain between them …
A mother with three hands,
Three wounds,
Three prayers,
Asking only that no child burn the house
To prove the house is unfair.
To the hand holding the keys:
Remember …
A chair is not a throne.
Power is borrowed clothing.
Today it fits your shoulders;
Tomorrow it belongs to another.
Do not let authority build walls around the heart.
The strongest hand is not always the fist.
Sometimes it is the hand that opens the door.
Sometimes leadership is simply knowing when to listen.
To the hands pulling the rope:
Do not let pain teach you cruelty.
A righteous wound does not become righteous
When it wounds another.
Do not demand dignity with the language of vengeance.
Even justice must carry compassion
In its other hand.
And to the child watching all this from the corner:
Do not inherit our quarrels as your education.
You will inherit this house long after our voices
Have become echoes.
Do not let us teach you
That disagreement must become hatred.
How strange we are.
We enter temples seeking peace,
Mosques seeking justice,
Synagogues seeking righteousness,
Sacred spaces seeking wisdom,
And return to the world forgetting what we learned.
Different rivers,
But the moral water flows toward the same sea:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Justice.
Mercy.
Peace.
Compassion.
Unity.
Yet we sometimes kneel before Heaven
While standing on one another.
Perhaps the mirror is not asking:
“Who is guilty?”
Perhaps it is asking:
“Who among us is willing to change?”
Let the mirror speak to every hand.
To the hand that commands.
To the hand that resists.
To the hand that watches.
To the hand that waits.
And let it speak to mine as well.
For neutrality is not blindness.
It is the courage to search every heart …
Including one’s own.
The old house does not need another victory.
It needs healing.
It does not need another wall.
It needs a bridge.
It does not need another raised fist.
It needs an opened hand.
Because when the dust settles,
When the arguments fade,
When the keys change hands,
The old house will remain.
And tomorrow’s children will ask:
“Did we protect the house?”
Not: “Who won the fight?”
There is still time.
Time to lower the voice without lowering dignity.
Time to disagree without destroying.
Time to apologize without humiliation.
Time to listen without surrender.
Time to remember
That this house is bigger than all of us.
I stand here still …
A mother of three,
Holding three hands,
Beneath one roof,
Whispering one prayer:
Let no one win the battle by burning the house.
For in the end, there is no victory