To Youth

When we were young
some said we were wild, carefree.
Wherever we wanted to go
we stuck out our thumbs.
I for one hitched across Europe, Canada and much of the U.S.A.
Once a French trucker bade me pee on the side of the road,
told me “there’s nothing sophisticated about holding it in.”
Crabbers on the neon green coast of Oregon took me home,
plied me with fresh catch redolent of the sea.
So many towns I passed through,
achingly beautiful, drenched in history,
I wanted to stay.
But our youthful shoulders
bore a daunting responsibility:
an endless war of epic carnage
while millions of sisters and brothers
in our own “free country”
barely survived
a mere step away from slavery.
My generation, called
to put our bodies on the gears of the machinery,
filled the streets day after day after day
till the war was over
and Jim Crow brought low,
a bloodied Beast forced to slink away.
My hopes are with youth
gripped by today’s existential dangers.
Our planet gasps for air in fire and flood,
all species stare extinction in the face.
Fascist monsters
replace the rule of law with raw power,
disappear people of color,
prepare to drown Venezuela in blood.
Your generation is called on to rise
to an occasion of molten consequence─
to rout the fascistocracy,
to lead us back from the precipice,
to be the surprising heroes
humanity cries out for you to be.

This article was posted on Sunday, December 7th, 2025 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.