I have thought long and hard about posting this, but we who are writers must stand up and be counted. Above all, we must call to account the ones who seek to destroy our hard won freedoms. We must speak out and never be silenced. We have power, both individually and together. We must use it. As the great Toni Morrison said last year in The Nation:
‘This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair. No place for self-pity. No need for silence. No room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilisations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. ‘
After the Election
9th November 2016
We
We the people
We the people of the world.
That world.
This world.
Our world,
where Justice is blind
to the groping hands
that stole her virtue
and her sword.
Her feathers
are all broken now,
pinions drooping,
primaries snapped,
and dragging in dirt.
Her scales,
turned bronze-orange,
weigh bigotry and hate
versus love and hope,
and no one wins.
Will you, America, lock out
we your Mexicans,
we your huddled refugees,
we your wretched Muslims
from the shore of liberty?
Will you silence our dissent,
punish the bodies
of we your pregnant women
and hit we your gay children
with electric shocks?
Will you come
for your we of different skin,
dressed in white hoods,
with lighter flames
and a Hallow’een pitchfork?
Will you repeal
the rainbow rights
of we your queer ones,
we who choose roads less travelled,
live lives of difference?
Can you really put a gag
in we?
We.
We the people.
We the people of the world.
This world
That world.
Our world.
Where lights will shine
despite you.
© Lucy Coats 2016