It is everywhere around us and in the air and under the waving grass and flowering trees, it grinds beneath the oceans and granite and sand.
You can hear it: a murmur this morning, insistently loud by midday, a high-pitched keening wail at dusk and now, as night falls, a steady thunderous roar.
In cities, on farms, in mountain villages, in the cul-de-sacs of the suburbs, in old factory towns of the rust belt and hip urban precincts of the coasts, across the land the great shift reveals.
This is the moment when history meets flesh, when hands find hands, when the future quivers before us like a delicate iridescent bird hovered above a blossom.
In our way lies a filthy carcass, its putrid flesh covered by a swarm of blue-black flies. It blocks the avenue with its stink and bulk and dreadful rotting weight.
Tonight, we sleep.
Tomorrow we will break bread with the ones we love and tend to the cats and dogs and gardens, then ready ourselves for the task ahead.
This is the moment.
Hands find hands.
Birds find blossoms.
Look to the sky, look to those who stand at your shoulders.
We are the storm, the earthquake, the flood, and the hurricane.
Wonderful essay. Whoever rises up to lead the “Toss the Sink Party” will need you as their speech writer.
I loved this. ❤️
I want to share this from FB
Cleve Jones
Author, “When We Rise”
The shift is there. Deep, tectonic, massive.
It is everywhere around us and in the air and under the waving grass and flowering trees, it grinds beneath the oceans and granite and sand.
You can hear it: a murmur this morning, insistently loud by midday, a high-pitched keening wail at dusk and now, as night falls, a steady thunderous roar.
In cities, on farms, in mountain villages, in the cul-de-sacs of the suburbs, in old factory towns of the rust belt and hip urban precincts of the coasts, across the land the great shift reveals.
This is the moment when history meets flesh, when hands find hands, when the future quivers before us like a delicate iridescent bird hovered above a blossom.
In our way lies a filthy carcass, its putrid flesh covered by a swarm of blue-black flies. It blocks the avenue with its stink and bulk and dreadful rotting weight.
Tonight, we sleep.
Tomorrow we will break bread with the ones we love and tend to the cats and dogs and gardens, then ready ourselves for the task ahead.
This is the moment.
Hands find hands.
Birds find blossoms.
Look to the sky, look to those who stand at your shoulders.
We are the storm, the earthquake, the flood, and the hurricane.
We are the scouring wind and cleansing water.
This is the moment.
Great essay. Truth!
Bravo.