My wife, Shirley, and I attended a rally and march in Rutland Vermont, Saturday, 3/24/18, the day of March For Our Lives, a true milestone in American history, not just because of the size of the turn-out nationwide and world-wide, but because all of the marches and rallies were largely organized and led by youth. If there wasn’t a movement before, there is now.
This hauntingly beautiful poem is by Athalia Allen, freshman at (Vermont) Rutland High School. Actually these words are lyrics to a song she composed and sang for the rally in Main Street Park, to a gathering of 500.
I Hear You Crying
Breathe in blood red moon,
I hear you crying.
Breathe out dark sky,
I feel you shining.
On my face
When the night falls.
And the brook calls your name.
Tiptoe waiting wind
I smell the rain.
Challenge me crashing waves
I feel your spray.
On my face
When my dress and my soul fly in the wind.
Closed are my eyes,
For I too am crying.
You can’t pull a trigger and murder the sun.
Yet you can put a hole in the ground.
My soul is speaking and so is my mind.
Yet my voice doesn’t make a sound.
Breathe in blood red moon,
I hear you crying.
Breathe out dark sky,
I feel you dying.
You’re exhausted
When the night falls.
And the brook calls your name.
Breathe in blood red moon,
I hear you crying.
—Athalia Allen
