Soapbox

It will not be easy.
But it will be
Okay.

Life is worth the fight.
Love is worth it.
I am worth it.

Summer clouds are worth it
The smell of baking cookies is worth it
Laughing ‘til your sides hurt is worth it
Curling up in front of a fire is worth it
The first opening of a new butterfly’s wings is worth it
The connection of singing in harmony is worth it
Crickets under a sky full of stars is worth it
Bright pebbles in a stream are worth it
The sound of rain on a tent is worth it.

Baby goats are worth it
Paint moving through water is worth it
The soft fur on Tucker’s face is worth it
The sound of Ted breathing in sleep is worth it
Easing into a tub of hot, fragrant water is worth it.
The smell of pine trees is worth it
The belly laugh of a baby is worth it
A storm when you’re safe and dry is worth it
A cold night when you’re warm inside is worth it.

My name on an envelope from a friend
The sound of falling snow
Distant lightning illuminating a cloud
The first pink of sunrise
The first bird of the morning
The hallelujah chorus of a pond full of peeper frogs
The roll of distant thunder
Daisies smiling from a roadside ditch
A strawberry, still warm with sunshine

A peach so ripe that the juice runs down your chin
The first page of a new book
The last page of a really good book
Fishing with Grandpa
Sunlight speckles through a sycamore tree onto the water
The first taste of hand-cranked ice cream
Brilliant autumn leaves
A hammock in the shade
The shouts of kids at the beach on a hot day

A heron gliding silently along a river
Evening walks
Spontaneous hugs
The first step in the door when you’ve been long away
Rocking a baby to sleep
Creating something new
A horse running through a field
A difficult job completed
The jelly softness of a puppy’s belly.
Lilacs
Porch swings

The wind in your face
Staying up talking half the night
Sleeping late
That first big stretch of the morning
Seeing seeds you planted sprout
The smell of bacon
The chance to be of service
The touch of skin to skin
The bottom of a small kitten’s paw
The smell of clean sheets hanging in the breeze
A good teacher
The opportunity to teach another
A song that makes you cry
A happy dream of a loved one departed.

Moses tried asking.
He and Aaron went to Pharaoh and asked for justice.
They respectfully pointed out that it was impossible for the people to get ahead
when there weren't enough jobs, and the ones they had
paid slave wages,
said all they were asking for was a chance to do better
but Pharaoh sent them away.

So they came up with a plague of frogs,
which really snarled up traffic around the malls
and made Pharaoh's wives late for their brunch.
They told him that their children were stuck in crumbling schoolswith no books.
Pharaoh's wives really, really  hated frogs
so he assured Moses and Aaron that he'd see what he could do…
and then as soon as they were out of earshot,
Pharaoh cut school lunches instead.

Moses  tried locusts,
brrought petitions signed by just about everyone,
said  he really had to insist
that surely now Pharaoh could see that he had to
stop locking people up for stealing food
when they were hungry!
But Pharaoh called him a thug and sent him on his way.
So Moses returned with boils, and gnats
demanded an end to predatory banking that was
making Pharaoh's friends rich but
more and more of the people were homeless
In reply Pharaoh just had the people tested for drugs
before they could get their portion of grain.

And Moses spoke with thunder, and with darkness
marching to the palace with torches and signs,
cried out for an end to murder in the streets without punishment
And even though his advisors warned him
that desperate people can do desperate things,
Pharaoh said that the slain
had surely done something wrong or they wouldn't be dead.

Moses tried asking nicely
and waiting for the ones with all the power to give him what he needed
but  it wasn't until there was blood in the houses of Egypt
that Pharaoh admitted that maybe that
maybe it was time to set the people free.

Riots are ugly, destructive things.
but sometimes people burn cars and throw bricks
and start riots
because the locusts and the frogs
and the gnats and the boils and the thunder and blood
just weren't getting through.

Why is it that at 2 o'clock in the morning I can walk through the house
sure-footed in the dark
with no need or impulse to turn on the lights
but at 9 PM on this July evening
at each threshold my hand twitches, frustrated and confused,
toward the wall switch?
Damn.

Rooms seem darker when you know the lights don't work.
An evening house with no power feels empty,
deserted by TV, radio and microwave,
books and crossword puzzles now mysteries unsolveable
since whatever caused this power failure hours ago.

You never realize how much noise the refrigerator, air conditioner
and water heater make until they all stop breathing all at once.
Like a marionette with its strings cut, the house is motionless,
uncirculated air already feeling musty and close.
It feels grief-stricken,
populated by ghosts of so many things once flashing or humming,
now dead.

The only life or light that remains is outside
so I open the door and settle on the front stoop.
Compared to the tomb I left indoors
the air outside is fresh and pulsing with power.
There is a thick greenish glow to the twilght
as if the grass and trees, envigorated by the recent rain
are glowing with chlorophyll delight.
All the houses up and down the street are dark and sleeping,
but the lawns and pavement around them dance with lightning bugs
and glimmer from occasional distant lightning.
The evening is raucus with the ancient lovesongs of crickets and cicadas
and is the rustle of wet leaves in the wind always that loud?

Is it just the approaching night
or the lack of electric competition
that sends the fireflies into such a frenzy,
bouncing off bushes and mailbox,
flashing in double-time?
The absence of a porchlight has not discouraged the mosquitoes either
so as the last glow fades over the rooftops
I go back inside.
I brush my teeth in the dark, and
reminding myself not to reach for the wall switch as I pass,
go to my room, open the window,
sit on the edge of my bed and swing my legs
uncertain what do to next.

We are prisoners of so much conveniences.
bound tightly with all our power cords.
Our great-grandparents were not so encumbered by a lack of canned daylight.
They had gas or oil lamps and simple tasks to do by their dim glow
but mostly, they were prepared to go to sleep when the world got dark
and rise with the returning sun.

We, of the advanced modern age struggle to navigate by the glow
of our rapidly de-poweing cell phones,
stare at our computers and blenders as if they have betrayed us
and cannot think of anything to do that does not
need to light up or speak or move by itself.

Finally I lay back and close my eyes, resign myself to darkness
and the sound of my breathing
when, with a loud click and then a rush 
the power is restored.
In relief- and chagrin
I leap from my bed, hands up to shield my eyes,
and hurry to shut off all the shining, whirring and shouting things in my house
wonder why I'd had so many things turned on at the same time anyway.
I find myself returning the house to the darkness
that so frustrated me a minute before,
consider watching TV for a while
but instead I lay down again,
look out the window and
listen to myself and trees, breathing together
while the crickets sing.
 

Oh the water is gray, and I must not drink;
Arsenic and ash flowing into my sink
Watch Mercury rise- not in the sky
And they just excuse and they justify.

Now the water is orange, but they say that's fine
For the permit says they're within the line
But water don't stay: it runs deep and far
And they just drive away in their fancy car.

Then the governor spoke- and he said "Don't fear!
We'll investigate what has happened here"
But his pockets are full and the circle is drawn
And you can't get back what's dead and gone.

We must feed our kids and wash our hair
With a coal ash soup and  whispered prayer
And they get rich, and we die young
Cause lives don't count on the bottom rung.

They pump it away and consider it gone
But the toxic flume goes on and on
And the poison flows on to the bright blue sea
And the lead runs deep and the fish can't breathe.

They speak of jobs and of progress too
While our bean plants grow from a coal ash stew
And its hard to work when your skin peels red
And the water burns and the river is dead.