by: Josh Healey [ http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/joshhealey/ ] on November 17th, 2011 | No Comments » [ http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2011/11/17/when-hope-comes-back-a-poem-for-the-99-percent/#respond ]
On Tuesday night, I was out on Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley, with over 10,000 people reclaiming the space for OccupyCal. I was there to receive the Mario Savio Young Activist Award, which had been scheduled for the same night across the plaza inside Pauley Ballroom. But with thousands of people outside demanding free speech and equal education on the very same steps that Mario Savio had once stood himself, the two events were beautifully combined, and I was able to give my poem outside with the people, right where it belonged.
When Hope Comes Back (A Poem for the 99%) when Hope comes back he will be more than a campaign slogan and a face on a poster faded red, white, and blue he will not come from a presidential palace bought and paid for like a Citibank stock option villa he will put not forget to put on his walking shoes and join the picket lines in New York the bread lines in Baltimore to shake the calloused hands of everyone walking by when Hope comes back he might be named Barack but he won't be named Obama when Hope comes back he will be a Black Panther baby who speaks Spanglish and cooks Korean tacos and does 180 sun salutations to the soundtrack of Zion I - yes, Hope is hella Bay when Hope comes back he will be a UFW farmworker who loves his fields and his flag more than he hates his foreman he will be a runaway foster child who forgives his parents he will be an Iraq war veteran who returns to protest in Oakland again without tear gas canisters to his head when Hope comes back he will come back from the future in a DeLorean like Michael J. Fox and show us all the things we'd won like people swimming across the Rio Grande for fun rather than survival and the only student debt being to our livers rather than to our banks and then Michael J would take us for a ride back to the past and show us this is not our first occupation Flint, sit-down strikers in '36 Alcatraz, American Indian Movement in '69 Sproul Plaza, Free Speech Movement in '64 and every semester since then that was worth a damn and reminded Berkeley what it means to be called Berkeley when Hope comes back he will be one of my students East Asia meets East Oakland brilliantly cross-continental even though he hates the ocean speaks with the wisdom of Buddha and Mac Dre really, he is my teacher and I think he knows it and we're both ok with that when Hope comes back he will actually be a she because hey, that's who actually gets shit done she will be a librarian by day, a DJ by night, an Occupy activist in between she will be thick hair and thick hips and if you try to touch either one you'll get a thick hand to the face when Hope comes back she'll show us to burn down the banks in our hearts and love without lust or profit or restraining orders when Hope comes back she will be an OPD cop, then NYPD, then UCPD, refusing to follow orders putting down their riot gear and picking up a picket sign cuz when the cops join the 99% they actually belong to that's when the banks will have nowhere to hide when Hope comes back she will be a midwife in tune with the moon and the womb an ancient healer who knows every herb in the redwoods ready to help us birth a new world one without bombs or borders or Michelle Bachman a planet of peoples free to honor the earth and each other like the God in whose image we're still trying to evolve into when Hope comes back she will be here right here, right now on the streets and plazas and parks of New York and DC Milwaukee and Austin Portland and Nashville London and Manila and Cairo San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, CA with the people and the hashtags setting up her tent in the morning paintings banners in the afternoon attending ridiculously long meetings in the evening shutting down the port of Oakland and reminding us all that yes, Hope still lives here in America she has always lived here with us and now she is back before our eyes marching head high, fist higher and whispering to the millions amongst her, "Thank you. Thank you. You're bringing me back. Take my hand, feel my pulse joined with yours. Trust my taste on your tongue, my strength in your lungs, and let's see how far we can go together."
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