Thoughts During The Protest

A sort-of poem

This was written shortly after the International Women’s Day protests. I hope this piece speaks for itself.

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“I’m sorry, I’m nervous,” says the redhead to the megaphone.
“I’ve never done this before.”

And her knees shake together in those
Lavender-hued bell-bottoms.
Is this what strength is, I wonder:
Announcing to the crowd, to the heavy sky,
To any who will hear
And listen:
That you are afraid
But you are here?

I am reminded of chickadees –
The small, common resident of the wild and
The urbane.
Each weighs less than an ounce,
So small as to be insignificant.
But if there is a threat:
An owl, a cat, a hawk –
Together, ah,
Together they are a force,
A multitude of ounces
Banded as one
To drive the danger away
And not a one is so small
As to be insignificant.

Our threat is orders of magnitude larger.
We fear not owls, but tyranny.
In lieu of a hungry cat, we face jaws slathering for power.
It is not a hawk that looms, but the collapse of all security.
And a single human weighs so little,
It’s easy to feel insignificant.

But together –

Ah, together we swarm, we rally,
We protest.
We cry for justice, democracy, equality.
We can drive out the threat of fascism

Even if our knees shake

Because we are here.
Because this is strength.