by Andrea Gibson
When two violins are placed in a room
if a chord on one violin is struck
the other violin will sound the note.
If this is your definition of hope,
this is for you.
For the ones who know how powerful we are,
who know we can sound the music in the people around us
simply by playing our strings.
For the ones who sing life into broken wings,
open their chests and offer their breath
as wind on a still day when nothing seems to be moving
spare those intent on proving god is dead.
For you when your fingers are red
from clutching your heart so it will beat faster.
For the time you master the art
of giving yourself for the sake of someone else.
For the ones who have felt what it is to crush the lies
and lift the truth so high that steeples bow to the sky.
This is for you.
This is also for the people who wake early
to watch the flowers bloom.
Who notice the moon at noon on a day when the world
has slapped them in the face with its lack of light.
For the mothers who feed their children first
and thirst for nothing when they’re full.
This is for women.
And for the men who taught me
only women bleed with the moon,
but there are men who cry when women bleed
men who bleed from women’s wounds.
And this is for that moon
on the nights she seems hung by a noose,
for the people who cut her loose
and for the people still waiting for the rope to burn
about to learn they have scissors in their hands.
This is for the man who showed me
the hardest thing about having nothing
Is having nothing to give,
who said the only reason to live is to give ourselves away.
So this is for the day we’ll quit our jobs
and work for something real.
We’ll feel for sunshine in the shadows,
look for sunrays in the shade.
This is for the people who rattle the cage that slave wage built,
and for the ones who didn’t know the filth until tonight
but right now are beginning songs that sound something like
people turning their porch lights on
and calling the homeless back home.
This is for all the shit we own,
and for the day we’ll learn how much we have
when we learn to give our shit away.
This is for doubt becoming faith,
for falling from grace and climbing back up.
For trading our silver platters for something that matters,
like gold that shines from our hands
when we hold each other.
This is for your grandmother,
who walked a thousand miles on broken glass
to find that single patch of grass to plant a family tree
where the fruit would grow to laugh.
For the ones who know the math of war
has always been subtraction
so they live like an action of addition.
For you when you give like every star is wishing on you,
and for the people still wishing on stars
This is for you too.
This is for the times you went through hell
So someone else wouldn’t have to.
For the time you taught a 14-year-old girl
she was powerful.
For the time you taught a 14-year-old boy
he was beautiful.
For the radical anarchist asking a republican to dance,
‘cause what’s the chance of anyone moving from right to left
if the only moves they see are NBC and CBS.
This is for the no becoming yes,
for fear becoming trust,
for saying I love you to people who will never say it to us.
For scraping away the rust and remembering how to shine.
For the dime you gave away when you didn’t have a penny.
For the beautiful things we do,
for every song we’ve ever sung,
for refusing to believe in miracles
because miracles are the impossible coming true
and everything is possible.
This is for the possibility that guides us
and for the possibilities still waiting to sing
and spread their wings inside us,
‘cause tonight Saturn is on his knees
proposing with all his ten thousand rings
that whatever song we’ve been singing we sing even more.
The world needs us right now more than it has ever before.
Pull all your strings.
Play every chord.
If you’re writing letters to the prisoners
start tearing down the bars.
If you’re handing out flashlights in the dark
start handing out stars.
Never go a second hushing the percussion of your heart.
Play loud.
Play like you know the clouds
have left too many people cold and broken
and you’re their last chance for sun.
Play like there’s no time for hoping brighter days will come.
Play like the apocalypse is only 4…3…2…but you
have drum in your chest that could save us.
You have a song like a breath that could raise us
like the sunrise into a dark sky that cries to be blue.
Play like you know we won’t survive if you don’t
but we will if you do.
Play like Saturn on his knees
proposing with all of his ten thousand rings
proposing with all of his ten thousand rings
that we give every single breath.
This is for saying, YES.
This is for saying, YES.
