Here stands
the glass.

Here stands
the question: is it
half full or half empty?

Of course we know,
intellectually,
that it’s full, always. 
Whatever that clear
liquid is, it stops where
the air begins and thus
the glass is filled with both
at once in equal measures.

To press the metaphor further,

let us pose the question
another way:
how do you feel
about water, how do you feel
about air?  Which do you
side with in your observation
of the glass before you?

If you choose air,
do you say what’s there is enough
to fill and overflow and
thus the glass is brimming 
of air, air laden with traces
of war from world over or wildfires
from half a continent over,
air which the world calls clean
and then says that
is the same thing as being 
half empty? 

If you choose water — 
do you assume what you see 
is water? Perhaps it is not,
but let us assume for the press
of metaphor that it is;
let us further assume 

it is clean water,
unadulterated, water not from, say, 
Flint or Standing Rock, with
no added solids to complicate 
the question; do you choose
water with all its uncertainties
and say the glass is bottom-full 
of water, which the world says
is the same as being half full?

There plays the news,
there lies the country — 

when you look at the news,
when you look at the country,
is the glass half full
or half empty? 
If half full, is your half full
a clean fill, if half empty,
is your half empty
crisp and honest?

When the metaphor is pressed
will you say that in truth it’s
nothing but shattered 
and the space where it was 
is now broken and boundless,
full only of wind and flood 
and storm and poison?

There stands the question.
There stands the glass.
There you stand between them,

asked to describe
the state of the 
glass when you aren’t sure
there is any glass
there at all. 

American Gothic is a very famous painting
Experts like to argue about which America it’s about
But one thing I think we can all agree on
is that the picture is centered on a pitchfork

We like to think we’re better than them
We like to think we’re beyond all that
We like to think we’re not the ones
who are supposed to hold the pitchfork

Our biggest problem 
is that out of an excess of kindness
we’ve let the other side pick up
all the torches and pitchforks

No one’s scared of
any of us because 
we said “this can’t be happening”
instead of “where’s my pitchfork”

Stop thinking of it as the exclusive tool of the devil
It’s just another tool on the rack
We can’t make hay while our sun dims
unless we learn our way around a pitchfork

Boycotts chants and votes all matter
and they matter even more when
it’s clear that behind the words
are the tines of a forest of pitchforks

And it is good to punch the obvious ones
but we’ll eventually have to get around
to watching a billionaire wriggle
on the end of a pitchfork

So go and look at that painting
Put yourself in it whoever you are
No one in there looks happy but they sure as hell
have a solid hold on that blessed pitchfork