“The Other Shoe”

While in the midst of my emerging professional career in 1998, the media was blazing over the scandal of President Bill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House Intern Monica Lewinsky.

Although I felt this was a shocking and unfortunate lapse in moral judgment by President Clinton, I think I was more appalled by the hypocrisy of the people leading the charge to impeach him.

Example: “Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Representative from Georgia and leader of the Republican Revolution of 1994, admitted in 1998 to having had an affair with a House intern while he was married to his second wife, at the same time as he was leading the impeachment of Bill Clinton for perjury regarding an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewinsky_scandal

As I was spending some quiet time during my lunch hour one day, these words and phrases starting overwhelming me. I felt as though I was simply a “transcriber for my spirit.” I never considered myself a poet. While writing, even the title emerged.

Here is the result:

“The Other Shoe”

(by Janette McGowen)

When the friend needs befriending,

And the comforter needs comforting,

When the Savior now needs saving;

The attacker is attacked,

The accuser is now the accused,

And the behaved one is now misbehaving.

When the forgiver needs forgiving,

The care-giver needs caring for,

And the nurse now needs to be nursed;

The lover needs loving,

The employer is now unemployed,

And ironically, this was all unrehearsed.

When the disciplinarian needs discipline,

The trustee can no longer be trusted,

And the painter is now being painted;

When the house builder needs a house,

The married one now has no spouse,

And what was truth now seems tainted.

Whatever someone does to you,

Without forgiveness, you do right back to them;

And guess what? No one wins,

The world runs amuck,

And all seems gloomy and dim.

Oh, how we go through our lives, not noticing a thing,

With our possessions and our status and our lists;

And with a quick turn of fate,

We find everything in our lives,

No longer truly exists.

Oh, how small, yet connected, we find the world can be,

Amazing, yet so brutally true;

When we find our one foot, that was always secure,

Now resting in The Other Shoe.