Where are the Warriors?

Maybe once you
casually gave
yourself
a name,
light bearer
freedom fighter
revolutionist
resistance leader
marching protester
not going to stand for this
a fist raised in the air
and is your fist still there?
Has it fallen to your side
limp and tired in this lie-filled
barrage of greed-blind backsliding
by this oligarch and his dark-hearted men?

Where are the Warriors?

This is not a battle cry,
this is no call to arms,
violence begets violence and
we will not bend down to meet darkness eye to eye,
we will not lower our hearts to understand congressional evils,
we fight with our Light,
we fight with our Light,
put your warrior fist in the air,
leave it there
but take your other fist and open it,
see your four fingers and thumb stretch outward with light
to the corners of our country
covered in heavy shadows,
stretch your light to
the poor,
the lonely,
the forgotten,
stretch your light
to the brown lady afraid waiting by the border
a fence line separating her from a dream,
stretch your light
to the bullied young child about to take her own life
because being different is harder than it seems,
stretch your light
to the black boys who need us to shield them
because the police have a quota to meet and bullets will steal them
stretch your light
to the young mother in the waiting room filled with fright
carrying a decision to make from one horrible night,
stretch your light
to the other warriors—
because we’ve only begun to fight.

Stretch outward
to the trafficked,
to the abused,
to the broken,
to the silenced,

stretch your fingers
to the streams now clogging with refuse,
to the air choking on smoke from burning coal,
to the wildlife losing their wilderness,
to america out of control,
to the Standing Rock now told to sit back down,
to the whales wrapped in plastic
who thought, in the sea, they’d never drown.

My god, how this poem could last forever in its listing of need…

A trillion ton glacier just fell into the sea.

Where are the Warriors?

So much decision
falls upon the wicked,
school children can’t unlearn hunger,
Warriors who marched in pink-
take off your pink pussy hats
flip them over and
fill them
with as many sandwiches
and apples
and juice boxes you can
until that hat bulges with new meaning.
Women, we must know persistence,
we must know that the dark reign (of men)
must be met with our willingness to lead,
to run for office,
to call out the violators of goodness,
to offer a new perspective of hope,
to Mother our country
back into beauty.

Where are the Warriors?

In Alaska,
a family of bears is afraid
to tuck into a curl of winter sleep,
because it is now lawful for hunters to shoot
them while they are hibernating,
while bear cubs dream of honey and daffodils
a hunter enters their warm cave
and unloads rounds of ammunition shells
reflecting the empty shell of his own dark heart.
I write this stanza as protection,
as the forming of my thoughts as a shield,
a force field around every warm bear cave exhaling deep sleep,
a force field around every wild fox den fresh with feisty pups,
a force field that blocks maniacal
trophy hunters shooting from helicopters,
because,
the bloodthirsty raid
the whitest
of snow,
and these words I offer as protection,
energy follows thought
energy follows thought
and I cannot stop thinking about the innocent, the innocent, the innocent.

Where are the Warriors?

It is at every level we must rise now.

Where are the Warriors?

We must take off our earthly disguise now.

Where are the Warriors?

Now, more than ever, this our time to fight.

Where are the Warriors?

In this era of darkness, let’s blind them with OUR LIGHT.