Encounter

We are unknown to one

another, have never before met,

have no knowledge of one the

other's individuality, personal

history, values, yet we instantly,

on sight, become alert, pass

judgement.  It is visceral and

weighted by heritage and culture.

She is dark, swarthy, habituated

to scowling for her facial features

have long since settled thus.  She

recognizes my ethnic visage,

not that dissimilar to her own.

We face in a brief exchange,

lacking the barest civility

through a common act of

public commerce, the served

and the server.  The hostility is

not amenable to an easy solution, 

it is as deep and unbridgeable

in its acquired avalanche of 

boulders of assumption brittle

with suspicion, blame and 

hatred as though the insults

and assaults had sudden-occurred

rather than representing ageless

conflicts the passage of time has

never succeeded in cleansing

to admit passage and the

alternate of humane empathy.