What can one person do?

February 2025

In the checkout line
   we have spoken our broken Spanish in public
   with the blushing lady from Mexico.
   Sharing photos of our kids, our eyes glimmering.
Immigration agents could not interfere.

In the vaulted auditoriums
   we have taught the sciences,
   and we have taught the humanities,
   and we will teach them again and again,
   even after they withdraw their permission,
   even after they take away our paychecks,
   even after they lock the auditorium doors.
The ayatollahs of ignorance cannot stop us.

In the shops and the offices
   we have lowered our voices,
   we have sealed our trust with handshakes,
   and we have signed union cards with grim sincerity.
The billionaire sociopaths were elsewhere, far away.

Everywhere and always
   we have laughed behind the backs of these small men,
   ridiculed their macho bullshit,
   smirked at the weakness they wear on their sleeves,
   laughed at what the small strange men mistake for strength.
Their impotence and their fear shouts louder than their bluster.

In every encounter with the vulnerable
   we extended welcome and we reflected dignity,
   we have found a kind word to say,
   we have wryly promised the trans kid
       that we will hide her in our attic.
Let the bile spill from the monsters’ whiny little mouths.

From the clutches of the hateful ghouls, right out of their laps,
   we have snatched back the teachings of Jesus.
   With each gesture of humanity we enter the Kingdom of God.
   Their vengeful god is absent: we exalt love in its place.
The false prophets stumble, twisted and naked. Sawdust falls from their eyes.

At every turn
   our empathy exposes us as lunatics and perverts:
   fanatics for compassion, wild-eyed enemies of lawlessness,
   extremists for education, militants for medicine.
The shameless vilify us—they ennoble us with their lies.

Under fluorescent lights, in countless unlikely spots,
   we come together and we build the third places.
   We reveal to one another our numbers.
   In the third places, we need not gasp: we can breathe.
   In the third places, we inhale sanity—we fill our lungs with belonging.
They rampage and they destroy. We build and we build.


We will look back and marvel at what little effort it took to reject surrender.

We will look back and rejoice that we did not fail to find our courage.

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