By Ruth McCole
Women’s March, Boston, Massachusetts.
Grim determination turns to gladness turns to awe
We leave too early
Afterward bells ring.
Muslim Ban One, Boston, Massachusetts.
A roiling, boiling storm-crowd
Makes waves.
A man shouts “You’re all going to hell”
A sign reads “Jesus was a refugee.”
Muslim Ban Two, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Nighttime scholar’s vigil
“Not because we are good
But because we are people”
Tears spill.
Tax March, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Village fete, bright and white
“I’m a raisin in a bowl of oatmeal”
“Too many laws killed Freddie.”
March For Science, Washington, D.C.
Rain lashes curious queues
She admires my waterproof placard
I shock her with the PhD Posters price tag
My privilege shows.
Climate March, Boston, Massachusetts.
Rainbows and windmills
My allergies soar
The happiest protest.
Fight Supremacy, Boston, Massachusetts.
A coalition crowd self segregates
Angry men, bandanas, moms
Cameras and screamers dart and shoal
After swaggering flags
Gazebo Nazis through the trees
Unseen, unheard.
Ruth McCole is a scientist from Brookline, Massachusetts. She studies the way genomes evolve to be as they are today. She is resisting and persisting in the new America and tweets about this @Ruth_persists. This is her first poem as an adult.
Photo credit: Haris Krikelis via a Creative Commons license.
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