Category: Civil Disobedience

The Song of Cardinals

Image courtesy of Will’s Company
An early morning, dogs walked,

Time to sit. Read the news.

Enjoy a cup of coffee and listen to the birds sing.



A twenty-two year old woman falls into a coma,

dying later at the hospital.

The police say she suffered a heart attack,

claiming their goal was educational only—

to teach her the proper way to wear hijab.



Now in Iran, women

bravely cut their hair and burn their hijabs

in protest of Mahsa Amini’s death.



I listen to the songs of cardinals

as they come to peck at the seeds from feeders

swinging from tall shepard hooks in my neighbor’s yard.



My hands shake as I lift my coffee cup to my lips.

No power.  My hands hold no power.  My body holds no power.

No power to help the women of Iran.  No power to protect them

from the brutality of the “Morality Police.”



I can not help but think of my own daughter of twenty three,

only a year older, just a year.

A moment of gratitude for her life,

For a moment, a sense of relief

that here in the U.S we have no “Morality Police”

Or “sharia” law— for my daughter’s sake….



But the moment of relief drifts away

on the song the cardinals sing—

We live in the state of Texas,

Which now holds dominion over her body.



My hands shake 

Powerless at the moment

	Only at the moment.

	Power rises as does anger.



The state, the nation, the world counted on fear to make us powerless.

	Yet now, injustices kindle the flame of power within us

	And nothing can stand against us once we unite.

Lilith’s Daughters

image courtesy of lilithandlavender.com

https://godoggocafe.com/2021/09/21/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-september-21-2021/

The daughters of Lilith condemned
To chance a gory laden death once again,
All the while, standing vilified as they
Who wear the mantle of Lilith’s power have always been.

Tomorrow and all tomorrows after,
The daughters of Lilith will rise 
With the glory and power of their mother,
Breaking the chains men make
Seeking to steal the power of Lilith residing in her daughters
Thus, breaking their spirits to subservient acquiesce.

But each of Lilith’s daughters will remind
Such fearful little men
Their mother was made before Eve
And fashioned of the earth as well.

For White Pearls

Image courtesy of http://www.thepearlsource.com

Faceless, nameless

Are the multitudes

Who still exist

Within the air

Of a past colliding

Upon your present.

Unpleasant for you,

I know, disruption

To the course of your

Day to day

Good morning harmony,

The dripping sugar whiteness

Of your “girl next door” hood.

You are not faceless.

You are not nameless.

Your language drips privileged

White pearls of empty empathy.

Turn your television off with white pride,

The faceless and the nameless

Will not apologize for the noose

You feel tightening around

Your Good Morning Positivity

As faced and named change comes

To Our Nation.

 

Spirit of Stone

Photo courtesy of Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt Veiled #writephoto

For visually challenged writers, the image shows a green horizon, beyond which the mist veils a hill topped with strange rock formations.

I knelt before God

as the earth was formed.

For ages I have been here,

spirit of stone unmoving,

waiting above the forest land.

I am the tonnage of stones,

living veiled behind swirling mists.

Yet, I am billions of stones,

existing beyond the veil.

I press the earth for meaning

when I hear the children of earth wail

of suffering through centuries.

I rise above the peace of forest land,

lifting the tonnage of anger I carry.

I am the billions of stones now,

moving beyond the veil.

I have risen, the world,

carrying justice

in the weight of stone,

the children of earth will not be moved.

Behind the veil, I am the tonnage of stones.

I will retreat there when this time is done.

 

https://scvincent.com/2020/06/04/thursday-photo-prompt-veiled-writephoto/

Silent No More

We were silent,

Back in the day,

When death came

In white hoods, noose in hand

To hang our darker sisters and brothers.

We were silent

When death went

Across an ocean

With bent crosses, yellow stars, and gasses

for the Jew.

We were silent

Back in the day

When death came

For our gay brothers

Who pleaded with us–

Silence equals death.

A lesson we’ve not learned yet.

No words for all this

As we shake our heads

Our silence kills yet again

And another black man dies,

Crushed under authority.

Yes, silence equals death.

We cannot stay silent

If we believe a nation’s promise

Time for us to stand up

And find the words to say–

Should you do this

To our darker sisters and brothers

You do it to us all.

We are the burning flame

Burning away the old ways.

https://onewomansquest.org/2020/06/01/vjs-weekly-challenge-98-no-words/

We, Intrepid Shield

6th and Jefferson in Louisville. This is a line of white people forming a barrier between Black protestors and the police. This is love. This is what you do with your privilege. #NoJusticeNoPeace #SayHerName #BreonnaTaylor
Photo credit: Tim Druck

Although I am not white, I admit I enjoy white privilege because most people perceive me as white.  My mother was Melungeon, a mix raced people of Appalachia, and my real father was of Hispanic heritage.  Most people look at me and see white features and assume a Greek or Italian heritage.  Yes, some ignorant people have said stupid, racist things to me because of their assumption of my whiteness.  In light of recent events, the privilege given to me by my features and skin color demands that I stand up to help.

 

We sat silent, complacent too long

Our children safe.

 

Between threats to our black and brown

Sisters and brothers,

We must shield– intrepid, resolute,

 taking spit, hits,

 gas, lash, bricks

 even death, should it come to that

So nothing touches them.

 

We must fulfill the promise of our nation—

              All are equal

 

https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2020/05/30/weekend-writing-prompt-159-intrepid/

 

Disowned 

More delicate than our dying Earth,

The fragile blood of our children dries,

Blistering in a baking sun

While we watch 

Our babies gasping 

Like hooked fish.

Our humanity broken,

We are wooden pawns 

In the game of masters,

Men who would be kings

Posturing outrage 

Over plans known

By them alone

Made in black secret rooms,

Selling us all to Mephistopheles,

Trading on the fragility of our attention 

With the lives of our children,

Who made us human. 

Nothing is left to wonder at,

But if this is the day 

Humanity made

God tearless. 

Tear Down the Curtain 

A battle won,

Time now to rise,

Rise in the streets to remind 

Of a time when 

With a banging shoe

Our damnation tolled 

As shouts and threats

Of our burial 

Brought us to the brink.

We must rise,

Rise, take to the streets,

Stand beneath the feet of great ones

They plan to topple and disgrace,

To show we see the link

Smelted and forged in gold

With the man behind the curtain.

We once caused a wall to fall.

Let our numbers now rip down 

A curtain made of gold.  

Power Rises

The Lady went dark,

feeling the decline.

The dawn trembled,

as the power of the mother raised

a sisterhood united.

 

While the capricious one

and his band of merry fools

turned tiny hands

to the magician’s tools

of distraction and deflection,

whipping their devout disciples

to a rabid, foamy hate,

ready to trample their different siblings.

 

Thus, the mother within the sisterhood

and a faction of the brotherhood

joins them to rise,

persisting in resisting

to protect a nation

for the next generation.

 

Treasonous Restoration

The once silenced sentiment

Finding voice in our modern age

Now screams in rage:

BUILD A WALL

WHITE POWER

MY PRESIDENT SAYS WE CAN KILL YOU NOW

GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY

 

And on it goes

Until an absence of color

Signifies ownership

Of Justice whose scales were sold

And tore off her blindfold,

Of Liberty whose anger more than scorched,

That book of law before that torch

She turned and hurled into the Caspian

To douse the betrayed flame.

 

Robes torn, heads covered in ashes

Justice and Liberty now sit on the ground,

Crying out:

 

With headstones overturned

And threats to Abraham’s schools,

How long before another night

Of broken glass?

 

With two now dead in Crescent City,

How long before the crosses burn

As the noose is placed round

The necks of Nubians

How long before the crosses twist,

And on them, shepherds are tied

And left in the cold to die, crucified?

 

When did the colors of our flag turn:

Red, White, and Black?