day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and EIGHT

Stolen

Maybe it has finally hit home as power clenches

its fist as it attempts to deny and to crush the majority

To dust. The president does not use the term “stolen”
as a euphemism, where he was beaten by an upstart

Who captured the imagination of a people and surprised
the political world. No. This is a bully taking a bike or

Milk money during school hours and when caught he
demands the victims prove otherwise. Stolen, the way

Petty criminals roam neighborhoods late at night searching for
an easy opportunity like unlocked cars to ransack for coins

Or guns - things people are too lazy to take inside. Stolen
by breaking an oath to uphold his sworn duty, a long-

Standing agreement between the government and its people.
The broken promises of this country are stitched into our DNA

And the spilled blood absorbed into the soil. Do not be fooled
what the president wants to take has been taken before. The ghosts

Of the betrayed rise from their graves. Our common shared
ancestor is an enemy that has eaten all the low-hanging fruit,

Yet still hungers for more. Agreements drawn and re-drawn
like gerrymandered districts cut and pasted to form a wall.

The voices of a choked history tried to warn us. Their warnings
echo through the South, the Black Hills and Wallowa Valley - a roll

Call of the displaced from sea to shining sea. They've told us: to thieves
honor is for the weak, blood inconsequential, and power is their gold.

--Tom Lagasse