When you have run out of courage;
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:
Even a whimper is a sign of life.
