I dedicate this poem to the victims, survivors, fighters, police, nurses, and all who helped in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing. This is for you.

After W.S. Merwin

Look,
with the first responders
we raise our hands.

From the front lines
we are reporting.

We are running out of
lock-down campuses
our mouths full of blood
to look at the falling Gods
and raise our hands.

We are diving into the Pacific
raising it, opening windows,
looking out at every compass point

back at a series of abandoned lots
back at jails after the novenas
we raise our hands
after the dead tweet
whether we knew them or not
we raise our hands.

In alleyways and in back roads
and in closets and in stairways
remembering wars, occupations, guns,
germs, and steel at the door
and the beatings on the back
we raise our hands.

In river banks,
we are raise our hands.
To the faces of officials and the 1%
we raise our hands
and to all who never change
we go on raising our hands.

For the children dying around us,
the lost years,
we raise our hands.

For the burning jungles
filling our lungs
we raise our hands

With limbs growing out
like poppy petals from pitch
roads, sprawling cancer sites,
along water ways
we are raising our hands
faster and faster

With nobody watching
we are raising our hands

We are raising our hands
and we are keeping the darkness
at bay.

Week18Year2