When I think about the wider world

When I think about the wider world
And all the people on it
I’m daunted to describe them all
‘Twould be a lengthy sonnet

How different and alike they are
Each bent upon their tasks
Whose dreams are spun and lived within
Beneath their daily masks

Male and female, tall and short,
humans fat and thin,
with endless mix of eye and hair
and pigments of the skin

That outer spectrum shown to us
is nothing to compare
To rainbows arching high and wide
Beneath the skin’s thin layer

But still despite their differences
So similar they fare
a common thread weaves through the lives
and stories that they share

Can we not pause to love them all
great masses thronging wide?
or pause to love a single one
found starving, fallen, tried?

For colors do divide us
into tribes that foster fear
so difficult it makes to touch
our neighbor standing near