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Saturday, October 11, 2014

FOR YOU, MALALA

by Kit Zak





For You, Malala
          fighting for the right of girls to read
          defying threats of death     and death itself
          your body warring against assassins’ bullets
                    I inhale the breath of your purity, dream your blood-red dreams
For you, Malala
          I pray to see my veiled misdeed
          I will fast for tolerance in my life
          and call out the cancers of hungry prejudice
          blinding young and old
For you, Malala
          oak-brave and oak strong
          I will embrace the firmness of trees
          their rootedness in earth
          stretching arms into the heavens
For you, Malala
         I will shed skins of selfishness
         roll up my sleeves for the unfinished work
         join battles for the rights of every human
For you, Malala, have restored our hope


Kit Zak is an environmentalist in Lewes, DE. She has published poems in The New Verse News, California Quarterly, The Broadkill Review, Jellyfish Whispers, The Blue Collar Review, and
several anthologies.