No need to speak softly.
I’m fluent in disturbance.
I witness your rough prayer.
I shall raise you up.
No need to offer yourself
alone. No need to backpedal
or hesitate. I’m opening
my war cage. Releasing
my deepest bombs long held within.
Too old to hang on to them
for a better moment. This is
that time. There is no time but this.
Those conversant in all the languages
of strife and how to struggle must listen
to each other now, and speak as they must;
no silence from any corner.
Make the silencers afraid.
Drown them out and hold them down,
face down, mouths full of ash.
They are fearsome, I know.
But I will hold you up and away.
I will cry them down into their filth.
I will join hands
with others in war song.
We will be no longer soft.
No longer silent.
No more of what
they count on us to be.