Poem by R.M. Dolin, July 15, 2025
I Side With Humanity
Don’t sympathize my silence
with surrender. Don’t assume an ability
to recognize an inability
to alter outcomes
wavers as weakness.
Don’t allow the apparent absence
of outrage
to suggest a lack of empathy
or desire for resolution.
Don’t press me through
the filter of your contrition,
because dear one,
I slay dragons differently.
From the R.M. Dolin novel, “An Unsustainable Life – The Book of Issac.” Seneca’s upset about the pending decimation of the wild horse herd that summer’s on Darwin’s ranch so Taos tourists won’t feel threatened when they take their rugged wilderness selfies. She doesn’t understand Issac’s lack of outrage and Issac doesn’t appreciate Seneca’s life-long bond with these horses or the way they connect with her soul. For him, wild animals are something you visit at the Chicago Zoo on date night. He is, however, seriously outraged over mindless Santa Fe bureaucrats destroying something tremendously important to his Uncle and tied to his land. It’s the same issue, same basic response, just passioned by different catalysts.
This backstory is motivated by a dear friend accusing me of insufficient outrage over the plight of the Gazan people. She believes my writing has the power to influence outcomes, which I wish it could but know it can’t. I provide her poems and an essay I posted about the conflict (P1, P2, P3, E1), unsure what more she expects. Somehow, she finds me more sympathetic to the suffering of Ukrainians in their conflict against evil Russian sociopaths (P4, E2, E3), which is unfair as I’m equally outraged at the suffering of anyone at the hands of an oppressor.
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