Another classic post, from June 1, 2008. It’s not that I don’t have new words springing forth–only that so much is pouring through me that I can scarcely keep up with it. This poemanifesto speaks to me with great power today. Perhaps you will find resonance as well?
Now is the time for you to step up! Now, as the world sets to ridding itself of liars and thieves who ply their nefarious trades in the name of liberty and all that is good and true. Now, as the bright light of day shines into darkened corners and illuminates the misdeeds of those who claim to selflessly serve the downtrodden and vulnerable, even as they inflict pain and the horror of untold suffering.
If you can speak the truth without obfuscation, we need your voice. If you can rein in your personal needs for aggrandizement, for opulence, for unrestrained control, we need your strength and guidance. If you follow a moral compass marked by zero tolerance for the heinous abuse of all who reside outside the halls of power, you must leave whatever it is you are now doing and make your stand.
Next year may be too late. Putting it off until you’ve got more money in the bank or more schooling under your belt, may be too late. If you have fresh ideas and a spirit free of compulsion to follow the torn and tattered flag of conventional wisdom, clean up your affairs and prepare to move to the head of the table.
(As I wrote the above, I realized the sentiment is akin to the piece “The World Needs You Now,” which lives in the Pages section of the right-hand sidebar. Then I found this poemanifesto from January 2006…)
Rise Up!
You who have wept the bitter tears of persecution
Who have felt the upward lick of flames searing flesh
Who have been struck dumb by the sword
By the henchman’s proclamation
By the unceasing fear wrapped tightly around your neck
Rise Up!
For in you beats a heart that knows the power of truth
Grace of wisdom, infinite knowing
A strength unmatched by the emanations of oppression
Driving force whose path unfolds in a ribbon of peace
Rise up! and untangle your conflicted inklings
Your impulse to soothe the frightened and weak
To touch in softness the crumbling edifice of the forgotten, discarded
Your hand glides before you in its flight to comfort the brokenhearted
Dispossessed, you offer shelter
Shattered, you offer an unimpeachable foundation
Without, you are laden only with the gifts borne from within
It is not enough to stand by idle!
To carry empathy in the strings that bind your heart
Rise up! Swords drawn
To cut through such muck and consolation
That hold you hostage to your deeds most courageous
Your arising brings with it the light of 10,000 suns
Here, tossed off are the trappings of bondage
To be reissued not once more
To free from primeval patterns the holding down of human flight –
Men in high boots and chiseled jaws, astride black stallions
Rise up! into their own descendent byways
The barking of orders ceases
Pounding no more in darkened vibrations of sound
Flesh against steel, gnarled fingers and toes in the wake of torturous gleam
There is a child who cries your name
Arms outstretched await the embrace
A mother’s eyes are trained on you
Waiting
When will you step out in their name?
Scoop up the fragments of life and lead them gently home to Love?
Rise Up!
Contain your rooting, unsettled spirit
The sky is yet another branch in an ancient reckoning tree.
words divinely wrought 
This speaks to me in so many ways this morning Rachel…especially as I live out what is happening in my home State of Wisconsin.
Thank You for being a Voice for Truth, in the way that you see it! Our world really longs for one another…I pray that we become as One soon!
In Cascading Love…
Akasa
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This resonated with me, and a conversation I just had with my daughter. I was trying to explain to here about the holocaust. She couldn’t understand why Hitler hated the Jewish people. ” what did we ever do to him?”
So I used a story..
Imagine you live in a country, where everything is falling on hard times. There are no jobs, food is very expensive, people are hungry, they are homeless, they are scared. A leader comes along and says I will fix this!
The first thing he says is These people, they have more than you, so we are going to pass laws to make it so that they have to share. Then we pass laws so that they can not own anything, then laws that say we have to know who you are, because you are the dangerous ones! so you have to wear this mark. Then we need to put you in a special place, so we know you will not rise up and hurt us. Now they are living in despair, with out hope. Now we will look over here at the people who took our dignity from us, and we will get revenge. Now I am tired of paying and feeding these people who are the enemy, I tell you I am going to “relocate them” in the country we have just conquered, that way we don’t have to worry about them.
Now they are going into the ovens. we take all that they had to feed our war machines, and no one really wants to know what happened to these people, because after all they were the bad guys!
What do you risk to try and save them, because you see they are people, not bad people, not monsters. Do you risk your life? your comfort? Do you speak up and be ridiculed? have people call you names? say that you are not a patriot? that you are with them!
what do you do?
It is hard to teach children to see the subtle ways in which we are led to believe what is right and who is actually doing what is best for us.
The integrity of our lives, depends not only on our inner courage, but on our ability to do what is right, where we are at.
It is the small things that shake up the world, that create the snowflake that rolls down the mountain becoming the avalanche …
~laughing~
sorry, didn’t mean to soap box! :)
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