Poem - V'ahavta - Aurora Levins Morales

 

Full poem here.

Say these words when you lie down and when you rise up,
when you go out and when you return. In times of mourning
and in times of joy. ...
[R]ecite them in your sleep, here in the cruel shadow of empire:
Another world is possible.

Thus spoke the prophet Roque Dalton:
All together they have more death than we,
but all together, we have more life than they.
...So instead,

imagine winning. This is your sacred task.
This is your power. ...
Lean with all your being towards that day
when the poor of the world shake down a rain of good fortune
out of the heavy clouds, and justice rolls down like waters.

Defend the world in which we win as if it were your child.
It is your child.
Defend it as if it were your lover.
It is your lover.

...

Don’t waver. Don’t let despair sink its sharp teeth
Into the throat with which you sing. Escalate your dreams.
Make them burn so fiercely that you can follow them down
any dark alleyway of history and not lose your way.
...

Hold hands. Share water. Keep imagining.
So that we, and the children of our children’s children
may live