as crisis after crisis happens and cries
after cries at the end of the old year
and new change hoping not to be same-old.
Two words on the tongue-tip of the heart
but one finds one can’t pronounce them,
can’t announce them with confidence,
determination and the pride of courage.
Got a cell phone but why haven’t they called?
Got a blackberry but they’re not on the menu!
Got digital buttons for every kind of question,
but the answer to one’s being
a disaster like a market-crash or an invasion
or a bombardment of innocence eludes one.
We got a new President and as epoch-making
and image-changing his victory, with the joy of
the people whose forebears were slaves,
and therefore the joy as well of the people
whose forebears were their masters. For now
we all really can be free. But why aren’t we?
Because we won’t say IS, won’t utter the IS
that’s International Socialism and throw our
energies into the creation of it, into making it
the irresistible power that will end the woes
and the wails of the war-torn and the moaning
of the women and children of this world. So
what I wish for you is the IS of 2009 where
those two words, first whispers on the lips
then a river sounding the poem that’s the song
embracing you with the meaning of the future
with your brothers and sisters allover this world,
and IS you IS, and IS we be, all each other’s baby.
—Jack Hirschman
