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Welcome to Week 80 of Be the Change
The closer we get to the election, the more I cope with the existential dread by writing poetry. I hope it gives you some energy to continue to work to ensure that Trump and his acolytes are kept away from the levers of power--now and forever.
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My son and I spent weeks assembling
a Lego car, 3,000 bricks of hard plastic
intricately connected to form a whole.
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It had a steering wheel, suspension,
moving pistons—a perfect model of a road-
worthy vehicle. We stood back to admire
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what we had built, not from scratch, true,
but from hundreds of pages of instructions
we carefully followed, step by step.
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And because it was designed to be used
and not merely admired, my son played
with it for days. But like anything man-made,
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it was fragile: it came apart bit by bit
until, before we knew it, the chassis was
missing pieces, the steering no longer worked.
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If you’ve ever built a replica, you know the
challenge of making it resemble the ideal that
inspired it. You know there comes a point
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when the sum of broken parts is greater than
the whole, the best course is to start over, and
you curse yourself for having tossed the manual.
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The adults hurry to their cars as the bell rings,
the crossing guard sips his water, takes off his vest:
today the children will read of warriors and kings
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while the adults dress up, do grown-up things
like go to war, go to work, draw the curtains—then rest,
and hurry to their cars as the bell rings
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tomorrow, and the day after, until each day clings
to the one before, like a child to her mother’s breast.
Today the children will read of warriors and kings,
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get too much sand in their shoes, play on swings:
time treads lightly, though the adults are hard-pressed
to explain this hurry to their cars as the bell rings.
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The crossing guard asks, what if the adults had wings?
What if the children? And at whose behest
do they hurry to their cars as the bell rings?
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Soon the children will have children, and nightly sing
them lullabies. My son, you are life’s distinguished guest:
you may choose to hurry to your car as the bell rings,
or heed it—and stop to read of warriors and kings.
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When you have run out of outrage;
when every day is a loaded gun
and your hand is not on the trigger;
when you have given all you have
to give and still disaster looms;
when clouds look like rockets
and ants begin to goose-step along
a branch, hungry for other ants;
when the walls shake though
the earth is still, and your lungs
heave though your body is motionless;
when fear becomes a hammer you are
poised to swing at your neighbors;
when what you see is unreal and what
is real is not seen; when the doe gives
up on its fawn and the hawk abandons
its nest; when joy is feeble and lucky
is the light that makes it through the fog;
when you try to shake the world
to its senses but your hands find
no purchase, and rocks tumble so deep
you hear no crash, and neither death
nor disease nor disaster is sacred;
when the bullhorn, the pulpit, the uniform
are abused; when rubble turns from
metaphor to dust and night descends
with no hope of salvation, do not
give in to silence:
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Even a whimper is a sign of life.
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Like the pile of books on my nightstand,
like the ever-falling leaves
in the yard,
my worries accumulate.
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Within each there must be a vein
of leaf, or word, or paragraph, or
perfect autumnal hue that
would show me how to
shake off these worries
like a wet dog, or waterlogged branch
in a shudder of wind, or mote
of dust on a butterfly's wing...
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If only I had time to sort
through this wretched mess.
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