For the Marchers
Olympia, WA - Monday evening, October 7, 2002

In the dusk I see - the faces of youngsters
and quizzical drummers; of singers and dancers,
the bodies of salmon, grandfathers, and artists;
stepsisters, vets and long distance runners;
ancient hippies, friends, couples, and lovers.

I see the young and the radiantly quiet,
the bedraggled, the straightforward & militantly hopeful,
the skeptically studied, the foot-tired. But none
reconciled to grief and none reconciled to war.

So as you call on me, I call on you
to remember the future and forecast the past,
to waken the dead with your attention to detail,
to write down your nightmares in ink in a black book,
then mail your heart to the front.

And as you call on me, I call on you
to call on your families and call on your friends,
to call on our senators and putative leaders
to call off their dogs.

And I call on the dogs to lie down by a fire
that burns steady, quiet and low.
I call on the fire to settle and whistle,
to drink to the summer and sing to the fall.

I call on the fire to be content with the moon,
the moon content with the sky,
the shy content with their inclinations,
but no one content to remain in disguise, 
and no one complicit with lies.