by R.A. Bridges
(dedicated to Liam, the little boy kidnapped and around the same age Corrie was; to the little girl kidnapped, and to the family of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse. I love everyone in my life, and desire peace, but I refuse to be silent in the face of tyranny.)
Minnesota, I see you, and I will listen.
Minnesota, I will speak, and write
even as I want to scream: “Why?”
Minnesota, I will pray as my father
taught me how. Minnesota, I will
look it in the face and call “this” by
its right name, and never deny
for I remember the words of the
poem of “The Hangman” by
Maurice Ogden, “Into our town the hangman came
smelling of gold and blood and flame.”
Or the words of Shakespeare: “Hell is empty and the
devils are here. “
Or the hope of Tolkien: “May it be a light for you in
dark places when all other lights got out.”
Or the warning of “First they Came” when
the poet wrote: “And I did not speak out.”
And, Minnesota, we all know the warning of
Orwell from 1984: “The Party told you to reject the
evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final,
most essential command.”
Or did we all forget what Suzanne Collins was
writing of when Katniss came to life?
Minnesota, they want to make you the sunset,
but you are the sunrise. The sky will be
painted with red long before the
pinks and purple set the sky ablaze.
Evil will not endure,
and while some who have been
baptized as righteous
will call the abused, captured, and killed
lesser, and dig up all mistakes of their
lives before the bodies are cold–
calling murder “justified”;
the sun will also rise and fear will
refuse to bow down to hate; no matter how
evil chooses to dress up and bait
the innocents’ rage. They claimed there
was a storm in the cities of ducks,
hockey, and the North Star. But they enter
the streets with masks and guns, saying,
“Get out of the way. It’s better for everyone.”
And “comply or die” becomes the new jargon
for those who forgot the words before us
as “we the people” lies between the boot print
and blood.
A young girl wrote of such events before.
Her words were not an exaggeration of
the events before us. They are the echoes;
a lasting refrain: “Keep our yesterdays from
becoming your todays.”
Corrie's Season 