Coming Down The Stairs

I come down the stairs
to see the faces of
my sweet revolutionary friends upturned
as they rise to the morning.

Goddamn, I love and hate them
all at once as I come down the stairs
into their cloud of hope
from my dreamless sleep.

I want to demand of the Powerful
that they see with me
their smiles pregnant with new holidays,
the street fairs waiting to break out when they sing,

how every movement
of every arm
and even every hair
becomes a banner

for a risen nation,
a revolution
for the living, the joyful,
the loyal opposition.

What kind of glory will it take 
to move the Powers to action?
I do not know, but it’s clear that patience,
once a virtue, has no place here today.

Coming down the stairs
from the closed room,
I see smiles,
I hear laughter

and their song and breath and wonder
fling me right into
the world they are making new.
Give them a short track to the Powers That Be

and together they will open up
every blessed door
that hasn’t been opened
in far too long.