With a Thunderous Applause

We will look at the children with questions in their eyes

We will have to explain how some were genuinely surprised

At the uproar and political sell outs who cared more for money than people

Money they’ll never carry beyond their stiff body under a steeple

We will share stories of how so many of us saw the relation between alligator and Auschwitz

How so many cared more to tend to their hatred if you were democratic

How many watched what happened in modern mass genocide

How others tried to help and speak their mind

From loss of rights to Gaza to Sudan and the Congo and so many other places

We will have to explain how for some it is important to know what their race is

And how the stolen land became the platform where democracy dies

With a thunderous applause, everyone knows is filled with lies

We will have to tell them how silence became law,

How protest was punished, and justice withdrew its claw.

How books were burned again—not in flames, but in fear,

How truth was outlawed, and facts disappeared.

How the press bowed down or was gutted from within,

How neighbors turned watchers, and loyalty was sin.

We will name the dates—when the courts were erased,

When mercy was mocked, and cruelty embraced.

When borders became cages, and language was weaponized,

And leaders rose high on a mountain of lies.

We will have to say: it didn’t begin with a bang, but a smear,

With a whisper, a law, and the turning of fear.

And the children will ask, “Couldn’t they see?”

And we’ll say, Some did. But not enough. Not fast enough for all of us to be free.