Shall Not Perish

[following the events of the election of Barack Obama on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008]


SHALL NOT PERISH

Fate –
It stares you in the face
As you sit there alone
Connecting the dots,
Drawing the lines
Of a voting ballot
That gives no choice.
You are one person
In a sea of millions,
A speck of influence
Riding the waves.
What is there for you to change?
You are nothing.
A grimy penny left
In the gutter:
Small change.
An increment so tiny,
So insignificant as to be
Almost invisible.
Who would notice
If you disappeared?
Who would notice
If you withdrew?
And yet, here you are
“I Voted” sticker
Prominently displayed
On your jacket.
As if you mattered.
As if they cared.
You walk home
To wait for the currents
To change
To carry you along.
You’ve done all you can do.
With a sigh
You fall into the hazy night
And sleep,
Watching drowsily
With one eye open
Not even caring to wake.
But then suddenly
The silence breaks –
Sleep is shattered.
A shockwave rings out
And shivers down your spine.
Screaming erupts from the streets,
Drums reverberate
Resounding in the riot
Of victory.
You walk outside
And the world walks with you,
Thousands upon thousands
Moving together,
A wave of specks
Shifting the tides
Of tomorrow.
As you watch,
The mob runs, screams, and shouts,
As smiles alight the faces
Of the free.
For they are free –
They’ve formed a wave
Of their own.
These specks,
These insignificant details of society -
Insignificant no more.
The new wave rolls over society
Like the aftermath
Of a bomb –
Powerful and destructive,
Changing the landscape,
Picking it up
And setting it down,
Destroying the old
Completely.
And you realize
That you are a part of this:
Not small,
Not insignificant,
Not tiny.
Not the victim of fate.
No:
You are the speck
That shapes the world
You are the small change
That, saved up,
Saves the economy.
The lucky penny,
The collector’s coin,
The history, the foundation,
The core of this country,
The very atoms, the very bones
Of its existence –
And you Shall Not Perish.