Oranges and Aluminum Foil

A poem for the unraveling

By Rebecca Villarreal

#viewsmyown

For the full impact and a lot of HOPE, listen to this poem here.

***

They call him

while deviants touch

the breasts of incarcerated innocents

at the border

between freedom and extraterrestrial accusations

Marketers analyze the product ecosystem:

Appoint them to kill the bees

so food becomes a novelty

and the Mafiosos of Monsanto

can reinvent what passes for a dinner plate

Whisper sweet nothings

into the ears of white supremacists

as they burn black churches

and chanters attack

“the others” now roaming the dome

Ignore planet earth agreements

Frack until there is no coming back

Add a portable portion of shock, awe

and a nation of shame

There are days when we remember human dignity

and also know the network

of he who shall not be named

was always working in the wings

Now though he hangs a shingle

on a wrought iron fence

These crags in human consciousness

were always there

Now they stand on a platform

of the make greats

of the again that never was

So how do we raise our heads

to a new day

Admit to the turning away

well before the up in arms of today

the share button

the scroll down to a new recipe

Let us turn toward the suffering

Flash floods insist upon it

Tectonic plates tell us

to drop, seek cover and hold on

we drown in buckets

of hopelessness and pills

to appease the gnomes standing on our chests

weighing down the divine feminine

but wait

We hoist our hearts up

Dig in our heels

with tendrils, roots from the mighty Oak

They call us global citizens

with our left hands outstretched

far beyond the crown

What they do not know is that

the pus oozing from the wound

is cleaning out

the raucous infection of disaffection

the empathy empire rises

She shall be named

in the face of your mother

daughter, sister, friend

She is here

Hands clasped in hands

Winning on the steps

of that swampy land chosen

at the power center

She has been plugged into the truth

of winning gold medals, CEO spots

and her microphone starts at the heart

the winning comes in the loving

in the little free libraries filled with food

in the children of Kampala

calling for climate change

in the tiny houses for the bedless

in the healing

because we are healing

We are healing

We are healing

We are winning

We have won.