Attend to the small truths of daily communion

When you’re fed the big lie, the best thing you can do to counter it is attend to the small truths of daily communion.

Resist! these myths of reborn glory,
these moles that modify history,
these mouths for the monopoly,
these flies circling our democracies
these puffed tyrants at the teat of post-truth,
these on-air barkers frothing for total war,
these demagogues, these party-puppets, these, these, these…

Resist! Vigilance is the price of everything.
Call out the treacherous use of patriotic language.
Gather daily, the manna of liberty.

Find a cobbler, mend your shoes.
Darn the holes in your socks. 
Don’t throw out the broken pot.
Puzzle out a picture from pottery shards.
Note the sky and speak of it with the grocer,
Watch the greening in your planter.
Share bags of kale with poets. *
Carry a big black marker.
Cross out words of hate
scrawled on concrete.
Collect rain water.
Shock a well.
Brew good beer.

Watch a cloud of fallen blossoms fly up from bicycle tires.
Carve a walking stick retrieved from a beaver dam.
Hike the spines of hills, seek the minds of valleys.
Stand on a rock and sing in praise of the robin.
Swing with the tribal jazz of the Veery thrush.

Believe in love. Believe it casts out fear.
Walk with grace and shelter the shivering fawn.
Switch off the screens that offer bargains to make you whole.
Listen to Jimmy Cliff sing, “Many Rivers to Cross.”
And as fruitless as it sometimes seems, vote,
while, and whenever you can.
And wait upon
a renaissance
of insight.

*Thank you to poet Will Webster, who brings kale and mixed greens he grows to the readings at Planet Earth Poetry.