*****

Recorded Reading (7:25): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/837np4hiqdvm1dfhnllm3/In-the-Grassroots-Begin.mp3?rlkey=lc34bct8cya02z1qn5xmeqvrq&dl=0

*****

The poet hopes that by moving her parking space to directly under this ranch’s satellite link she has finally engineered a workable connection to the weaker of the two separate bandwidths connected to it.

Back to work!

In the five years since the penning of the following poetic work, this poet has stopped riding city buses (since her readers’ donations bought her her little gypsy van) and slowed what was then a frenetic writing pace ~ producing as many as half a dozen new works and a dozen online posts each day over a period of years ~ thus finding herself with mental energy available with which to peruse news headlines.

Indeed, we all have around us a very different world than we did that short time ago! Everything from COVID to planetary warming to worldwide political watersheds are making it so ~ yet the poet notices that no other observation this poem contains has gone, for her, out of date.

The word “activism” has, among us, taken on implications of negativity ~ protest, outrage, ideological and sometimes physical destruction.

The words which should counter its current negative slant, “affirmative action,” representing the opposite emotional slant ~ constructivism, synthesis, ideological cooperation ~ have been co-opted among us, haven’t they? ~ to represent just an outdated “woke” beneficence to a single race of Man…

“Volunteering” is a scheduled, lawfully permitted, paperworked and heavily insured activity for organizations which must spend most of their public energy scheming for sufficient funding to cover the “generous” substitution of “fees and filings” (based on volume of financial flow) which stand in most stalwartly for the taxes our nonprofits are “not required to pay.”

Before offering the following, it should be noted that, even in the now weeks-long strict silent seclusion presently necessary for this poet while continuing in prayer and meditation for the highest good of all present on the ranch at which she physically resides ~ whenever an online connection is available with which to do so the poet does volunteer three to six hours of work, seven days of every week, for the inspiration, encouragement, affirmation and uplift of all, for donation only.

We don’t have a word for that kind of social contribution.

Yet.

The poet confuses these opening comments with the words of Mother Teresa:

“I will never attend an anti-war rally. But if you hold a peace rally ~ invite me.”

*****

In the Grassroots Begin

I ask now: What is activism’s
Most important goal?
Be it perhaps to liberate
Each person to be whole

In any way that person feel
The need their whole to be
Manifest individ’ually
Truly to be free?

I think it is.

The question, then,
Is whether I might qualify
The title for, or whether by
Disability belie

For I am hardly strong enough
To protests and to marches go
It would add so severely
To the pain that I already know

Nor may I peruse the news
And still expect to be
Appropriately focused
As poets are, eternally

I can’t make an appointment
And dependably be there
When and as committed
For I might not be anywhere

Laboring under such fatigue
As most folk know not e’en to dread
Might be confined that afternoon
To my perspiring bed

I guess I should just give it up
This notion that I also be
Any kind of partner In
Activism’s activity

Except, perhaps…

… those times when I
Am out on errands run
And with folks on the bus with me
Get up a little fun

You meet all kinds there, dark and light
Laborers, gangstas, young and old
The helpless, th’upwardly mobile
Inexpensive briefcase hold

Homeless huddling with their carts
Ex cons in a daze
Folks from every different place
Walking a hundred different ways

Now, if I clown around with one
Or maybe two or three
Intending to show each soul how
Acceptable it be

In my eyes and the eyes of God
Might that qualify me?
If I make sure my lips and eyes
Gently smiling be

When I walk past those many
Who’re despised by our society
The brown skinned and dimin’uative
Kids trying to be free

The service counter personnel
And cleaning faculty
The aged, halt and those poor souls
Skittering furtively

Convinced that never in this life
They will forgiven feel
For whatever it is they did
Which their self hatred seal

If I look straight into the eyes
Of every single one of these
Would by so doing I succeed
Activism’s tail to seize?

If when I do the single thing
I am still qualified to do ~
That’s sit up when the pain recedes
And write these words to you ~

I polish every single one
For maximum impact
Grounding some illusion filled
Readers in unsullied fact

Speaking for those invisible
Scared into hiding, dispossessed
Will’t leave me of the title
Of an activist possessed?

Well —

Now that I have thoroughly
Investigated the
Question that we started with
I think I start to see

Something I’ve been noticing
Activists about:
The best ones do not really care
If anybody finds them out

They work behind the scenery
They march one in a crowd
They exercise each little bit
Of freedom they’re allowed

If called, they’ll get up in the front
And from all watchers take the heat ~
But it’s ordinary people
Like the ones right down your street

Just doing what each one can do
Each ordinary moment in
Which will see love’s uprising
In the grassroots begin

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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