{"sf1_id":1702496,"sf2_id":"rn6zGRnv","title":"Eight Minutes and Forty Six Seconds on June Twelfth, Two Thousand Twenty","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":353,"posted_at":"2021-04-03T05:25:00.000Z","tags":["Autobiographical","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1702496-eight-minutes-and-forty-six-seconds-on-june-twelfth-two-thousand-twenty","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/rn6zGRnv","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/2f/95/2f956bbe-112b-4489-85aa-03e10a511523","description":"#15 of poetry\n\nThis was written when the title says. I wouldn't repost it, but I no longer have access to where it was posted, have no idea it's still there, and the whole point of it is to be somewhere.","content":"The rain continues. No thunder dares ring.\n\nNo winds howl. All is silence, save the sound\n\nOf distant trucks down on the interstate.\n\nI tell myself, pretend it is the sea\n\nThat all this rain, perhaps, will wash into.\n\nAnd I remain in silence. What must you\n\nWho read this in some history (I hope)  \nUpon the other side of peace again\n\nThink of me? You will know not who I am.\n\nWill you be able, even, to dare guess\n\nWhat infamy my silence is against?  \nThey kill black men and women in the street,\n\nAnd in their churches, and inside their homes.\n\nThey cage the orphan and the refugee.\n\nThey steal the land and slander those from whom\n\nThey stole it. They lock those who only wish\n\nTo love as they must love out in the cold.\n\nThey visit plagues upon their people's heads.\n\nThey slay with club and gas those who cry no.\n\nAnd all within a year. Nay, half a year.\n\nAnd any one of these alone deserves\n\nMuch more than silence. But what can I do?  \nWe vote. They throw our vote away unread.  \nWe write. They say they share all our concerns\n\nAnd then continue unconcerned. We speak.\n\nThey drown us out and say that we spoke not.\n\nWe fight. They call it looting and they call\n\nFor more guns, ammunition, poison gas,\n\nAnd gravely say we brought it on ourselves.\n\nWhat else is left but silence? At least thus\n\nI stand (I hope) and make eye contact with,\n\nUpon the other side of history and peace\n\n(I hope) you. Reading this. As if to say\n\nWe knew. We were as shocked, as scandalized.\n\nWe also felt that it could not be real.\n\nWe also wished that we could turn the page\n\nAnd read another era. We could not.\n\nWitness, we beg you, the injustice here\n\nIn these our rain-soaked, silent latter days.\n\nAllow no one to edit it away.\n\nAfter this moment, I will once again\n\nReturn to voting, speaking, fighting, and\n\nIf necessary, running for my life.\n\nBut now there is the rain, and silence too.\n\n  \n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1701639-autumn-is-a-pagan.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1702497-maybe-stop-telling-this-man-what-he-wants.json"}}