An Early Spring Sunset

A manic high school student�"

Neglecting Spanish homework,

Contemplating rape culture

And walking to one of the two meetings�"

Is me, on any given Thursday.

And on any given Thursday at�"let’s say�"4:32,

I am always under the same roof.

 

On this particular afternoon,

The sun is surprisingly high

Casting long shadows and

Its pre-sunset sepia love

Across the soil I step upon.

(Just as it has done, each day,

Throughout the course of history)

 

The blue of the sky is a tad faded, with perhaps a pinch of green.

Cascading the view are hundreds of mobile cream-colored clouds�"

As though the Gods splattered melted vanilla ice cream all over the ceiling.

 

But, behind nebula and the illusions

Of light bouncing off the atmosphere,

Lies a dark vastness, in which we're all entangled.

That, not only are the sun and the clouds

Present in this moment with the heavens,

But so are Capricorn, Delphinus, Sagittarius;

You can find Mercury and Venus and, maybe, Mars.

And the atoms used to create the planets and me,

The sky and our history,

Were all conceived in the furnace of the sun.

 

And so, lying on wet grass,

By the community center and the bike path,

Staring through the callousing clouds

And through the stoic, opaque blue,

My mind, like the African Masai

Who can see the moons of Jupiter,

Perceives all that lies beyond our heavens

And all that is ever present.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By simply staring into a sky that makes me believe in magic,

I connect with the Zapatistas in Mexico,

The elves in the UK,

The drag queens in the Stonewall Riots,

Marxists in Moscow, anarchists in Greece,

The rebels in the Iranian Revolution,

And the rebels in the Spanish Civil War,

Taoist Warriors in ancient China,

Revolting Incan, Aztec and Haitian slaves,

Participants in MOVE,

The Black Panther Party,

The IWW Unions,

And the American Indian Movement,

Radical cheerleaders, radical queers,

Radical Chicanos, Latinos, Asians, East Asians, Central Asians, South Asians, South East Asians, Arabs, Persians, Australians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Sub-Saharan Africans, North Africans, Eastern Europeans

And radical everyone else.

And by simply staring into a sky that makes me believe in magic,

I am connected with my dead grandfather-

Who worked with the Migrant Farmers Movement.

 

There is an unending supply of this life-changing energy, just beyond the clouds,

Collecting millennia of the beautiful, radical change seen around the world.

Revolutionaries, Artists and Leaders, from Queen Nzinga to John Zerzan,

Have poured their lives into this vat of energy�"into this universe.

And we are obstinately lethargic if we cannot tap into and utilize it.

So I stand here, willing the masses out of apathy and entropy,

Urging you to simply stare into a sky that forces you to believe in magic

And see that beyond the stoic, opaque blueness of our calloused demeanors

Lies a dark vastness, in which we're all entangled.

Reviews

[.]

Nice,
I can feel a lot of power, especially in the ending.

The beginning was a bit slow, but it contrasted well with the intense end.
Love u! and your poem!

[<3 Simply Rebekah <3]

you read that at pressions right?
Oh I loved that peom!
It was so descriptive and I could totally picture all the great images you brought up