Anthem

Here we are, and here
we will file into the fields
at dawn to make our voices known.

And if, according
to the strident dictates
of those grown blind on stupid

hate, we should have left
this world— We need only
to look at our hands and feel

the solid weight of every kind
of work we’ve done. Fish
we have fished for you,

chrome handle on the sides
of hotel doors and banks
with marble floors

we have opened for you
and the progress of others
who never saw us standing there.

Water we have filled
with tears and memories
of exhausted seafaring.

We should live out
this life and take from it
all grace that we can take

as far as humanly possible
and at the end say we will not
stumble, we refuse

to swing at the end of a rope…
Here we are where the century
has left us, where the future’s

impatient horse gallops in
from the far horizon and arrives
at the door of our homes, whinnying.

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