POETRY:  A mother stamps her feet
Demonstrators at a "Lights for Liberty" demonstration in support of detained immigrants, July 12, 2019. | Alexandra Wimley / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP

A mother in San Jose sees a child in

a cage and stamps her feet.

 

This is how it starts.

 

In a cabin, at the foot of shrouded

mountains a man and his wife, married

seventeen years now and still young,

watch a neighbor dragged out of his home

and taken away as his own wife works and

their children attend school. The young couple

visit the family that night. They cook a meal

together and plan for the next day.

 

This is how it builds.

 

A teacher leaves his classroom in Austin

for the long drive down to the border

and takes several of his colleagues with

him. Along the way they sing songs of

liberation and redemption.

 

This is how we sustain.

 

A committee of parishioners from

St. Mark’s in New York gather gifts of

clothing, toys and toothbrushes

and wrap them around a table in

the sanctuary.

 

This is how it grows.

 

They come one by one or in carloads. They come

on buses, they come by plane and a joyous

committee meets them at the airport

as if they were long lost relatives.

 

Now it really comes together.

 

Like a river from its source we meet together on

the road and out of one there are many

thousands and we stamp our feet, and the Earth

shakes. Some hearts are hardened, others are

broken, but each and all must now reckon

with their own demanding soul.

 

That’s how we win.


CONTRIBUTOR

Rafael Pizarro
Rafael Pizarro

Rafael Pizarro is a national co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS).

Comments

comments