For Our Men

Photo by Bea Ahbeck

And so here we are, mortal bodies
Made of skins and stories

Lord have mercy on us
While we lay our heart to the ground
As we bury our young
Our backs and wrists facing God

Bellies on concrete/Please don’t shoot

Our fragile bodies armored
With the courage
To demand justice
Taunting birds
Made of metal
Whirring in the sky

We are our own resilience
WE ARE HERE

Oakland Stand Up

We will protect our men with prayer send them off with our hearts as amulets
We have had
Enough

And we will march the streets and sing their names
Our soldiers slain in battle
Oscar          Sean         Amadou      Adolph

Ashe
Amen
Mabuhay*

Our hearts have become broken glass
Our anger
The fire this time

Enough

Let us mourn with the sun
Rise with hope for a new day

Oakland,
You are my family

Let me catch your tears in my palms
Hold you to my chest
Quiet your shudder as you weep
Cup your face in my hands

I will walk with you
For as long as you need

Pray with you
To carry our soldiers home

And I will love you
Strong   unyielding    and forever

Like this city

*to let live

I don’t have pictures, but there is an incredible Flickr gallery by a photographer by the name of Fetching who captured the rally poetically: you can find it here.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 11:19 am. It is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.