the joyful news of your arrest

this sunday morning everything

is bringing tears.

in church this morning

not a church anyone from my childhood

would

recognize

as church

a brother singing

ecstatic

about the bigness of love

and then this moment

news of your arrest

on the steps of the supreme court

a place of intrigue and distrust;

news of the illegal sign you carried

that you probably made yourself:

Poverty Is The Greatest Violence Of All.

brother cornel. brother west.

what a joy it is

to hear this news of you.

that you have not forgotten

what our best people taught us

as they rose to meet their day:

not to be silent

not to fade into the shadows

not to live and die in vain.

But to glorify

the love that demands

we stand

in danger

shaking off

our chains.

The World We Want Is Us

It moves my heart to see your awakened faces;

the look of “aha!”

shining, finally, in

so many

wide open eyes.

Yes, we are the 99%

all of us

refusing to forget

each other

no matter, in our hunger, what crumbs

are dropped by

the 1%.

The world we want is on the way; Arundhati

and now we

are

hearing her breathing.

That world we want is Us; united; already moving

into it.