FINDING HOPE

by Ron Shapiro

Festive.

Never in my life have I been to a march where everyone is smiling, singing along to the music, waving flags illuminating the space between elbow-to-elbow people of all ages.

Look to my left, women dancing. Look to my right, people hugging.

 

Is this the country I hear about on the news? Divided? Tribal?

 

None of that here. No way. No how.

 

Three mega-screens with the word Freedom surrounded with three stars on each side.

 

Above, wispy clouds and warm sun grace the day eventually evolving into a spectacular sunset of pink and orange clouds.

 

But right now, it’s a party! A celebration!

 

Good to be around so many like-minded folks. The vibe invites me to hope. 

Is that so bad?

You can’t tell me it is. No talking heads here. Just ordinary citizens being what this country could be.

 

Idealism bubbles up from the pessimism, cynicism, half empty, brokenness, anger, hatred and anything else in the raw sewage of lies and fascism.

 

Sitting now on the grass, I can only feel the deep bass shaking the earth and observe moving feet, bouncing bodies grooving with the music. I can’t help but smile. O’Jays “Love Train” rolling down the tracks of hope and love.

 

And if I look over my right shoulder, I can imagine the Washington Monument swaying a little.

 

The most alive I’ve felt during this election season. No news here; just joy of life, of being here now. Unplugged but plugged into the moment. Nowhere else I’d want to be.

 

This  place feels like a shelter from the political storm. Nothing to turn off or turn down here.

 

Just acceptance of how the country’s future could be if sanity, truth and love prevails. Nothing perfect but a baby step in the direction of King's "moral arc" of justice.

 

And should Harris win and repubs undermine some of her policy ideas, at least she will have elevated the English language.

 

Her speeches regularly use words such as hope, idealism, promise, opportunity, joy, rights, freedom, helping, raising, community, love, heroes, happiness, citizenship, compromise, love, new, forward, caring, trust, others, light and truth.

 

As someone who loves words, hearing and, yes, feeling those words at the rally yesterday emerged as one of the highlights for me. Being with 50,000 or so people immersed together in such positive language was deeply inspirational.

 

I think even Orwell would have savored the spirit of this uplifting moment.

 

And perhaps I sipped a bit too much of the celebratory kool-aid at the event.

 

But let me say that it was a delightfully sweet and tasty brew.

Ron Shapiro, an award-winning teacher, currently mentors college essay writing as well as teaches Memoir Writing through George Mason University. He has published writings in Nova Bards 23 & 24, Gatherings, Poets of the Promise, Poetry X Hunger, Minute Musings, Backchannels, Gezer Kibbutz Gallery, All Your Poems, Paper Cranes Literary Magazine and twochapbooks: Sacred Spaces and Wonderings. He lives with his wife and Shanti the Cat in Reston, Virginia.

TWO OLD PROTESTERS STILL READY TO PROTEST

by Jane Yolen and Peter Tacy

1965

JY:

So, sit down on this stoop,
not that close,
I can hear you through your mask.
The words are familiar,
that hoarse enthusiasm,
your passion for the cause.
Even old legs can march,
though not run away.
Do you have your water bottle?
City map?
Inhaler?
Tissues?
My cell phone number?
The lawyer’s?
I have yours.
Remember:
the arc bends towards justice.
It’s not what we stand against.
It’s what we stand for.

PT:

I learned early—close to home;

What’s wrong—what we all know
To be wrong—can’t be accepted.

My grandmother said it:
Accepting doesn’t just mean
You agree, either; it means
You’ve done nothing to stop wrong.

Wrong, she said, is not static, or
Passive; its impulse is to grow,
To add mass and momentum.
So we have to stop wrong, she said.

If we don’t stop wrong, then
Wrong will grow like a cancer
And consume us all, even if we
Hate wrong. That’s what she said.

I’ve found ever since that she
Was right. So—when I see wrong,
I don’t just sit there. Like she said,
Good intentions don’t equal good.

But what she didn’t say, and I
Know now, is that fighting
Wrong doesn’t establish good.

You’ve got to let your living
Teach you good. Live with the pores
Of your soul, your empathy, open —

Your sense of wonder and awe
Open like a trawl-net, to find good.

And whenever you find some good,
Hide it in your heart.  Because with it
Hating wrong no longer equals hatred.
A miracle happens—and hate

Transmutes to love. My grandmother
Never said that to me; but now
I know she lived it. How? My grandkids
Have taught me—as I did her.

JY:

Or as I always said
to my kids
and grandkids:
Leave the world
a better place
than you found it.
Not so hard now.
Or maybe harder.
You dropped your inhaler.
I’ll help you stand.
It will be a long walk.
But we’re used to them.
And the company—
all those young people—
the best.
In case enthusiasm
distracts them,
we’re here to remind:
it’s not what we stand against,
but what we stand for
‘cause the arc of justice
doesn’t just bend itself, you know.

Jane Yolen is a Hatfield writer with over 389 books published. 10 of them books of adult poetry. Peter Tacy, Yiolen’s fiancé, lives both in Hatfield and Mystic Ct and has been an educator and writer/poet for most of his life.

THE STUBBORN OLD NOTION

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Image source: United Posters

for Tony Robinson, Anthony Hill, and !Presente!

For a few months now
Six of us have stood on a busy corner
Once a week
Holding signs that read Black Lives Matter
In solidarity with the movement of that name
Protesting police murders
Of unarmed African Americans
And endemic racism in our country
We are in our ‘60s, 70s, 80s
And doing what we can
As our time grows short
To stand for the possible world
And not surrender to the despair
We increasingly feel
Not only about the tenacious cancer of racism
But also about the savaging of the poor and disempowered
And the plunder of Earth’s bounty
By the felonious elite

When we were young we thought
That revolutions were about to occur that
The tumult and turmoil we were part of
Would lead to a new more peaceful
And more just world
Any minute now
But over the decades we have watched our dreams
For that the new world
Go tumbling backwards down the stairs
And we find it increasingly difficult
To remain positive

Today as we stood with our signs
A man walked up to us and said
Fuck niggers fuck Jews
And the driver of a passing truck shouted
That we were nothing but a bunch of aging hippies
With meaningless lives
If he’d stuck around for a chat
We would have explained that
Standing on a street corner
Witnessing for justice and human decency
While enduring the blast and blare of traffic
The stinking miasma of exhaust fumes
And the scorn of foolish folks like him
Was meaning enough for us thank you
Whether on any particular day
We can muster up hope for the future
Or not

Just a few days ago
A nineteen-year-old unarmed black teenager
In Madison, Wisconsin
Was shot and killed in his own home by a white police officer
And yesterday
A twenty-seven-year-old black man in Georgia
Behaving erratically
Parading naked in public
Was also gunned down by a white cop
Maybe the long moral arc of the universe
Bends toward justice
And maybe it doesn’t
Maybe it isn’t optimism we need in order to persist
Maybe just the stubborn old notion
That to do nothing and remain silent
Is to give our consent
Which we cannot do

Buff Whitman-Bradley is the author of four books of poetry, b. eagle, poet; The Honey Philosophies; Realpolitik; and When Compasses Grow Old; and the chapbook, Everything Wakes Up! His poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. He is also co-editor, with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley and Sarah Lazare, of the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War.  He has co-produced/directed two documentary films, the award-winning Outside In (with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley) and Por Que Venimos (with the MIRC Film Collective).  He lives in northern California.