_{Originally posted in Organizing Notes on January 30, 2023}

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I am gripped by sadness,
clouds
of sea smoke
clinging to me,
waiting for the sun
to return,
bring
life again.

It’s a sadness
I’ve long known.

First becoming
recognizable
at a young age
when I read about
Washington’s army
slaughtering the Lakota
at Wounded Knee.

Today the sadness
descends on me
as I see Washington’s
darkness
illuminate the sky
via HIMARS rockets,
battle tanks being queued up
to be delivered to the front,
like the Hotchkiss guns
sent to South Dakota
in 1890.

The U.S. targets have changed over time.
Ukrainian ‘allies’ just hit
a civilian hospital
in Novoaydar,
(using Pentagon supplied targeting coordinates)
HIMARS was long-range weapon of choice
killing 14 people and injuring 24.
Nonstop Nazi attacks in the Donbass
since 2014.
All on behalf of the ‘defensive’ NATO alliance.

No anguished cries
are heard from western media,
nor from those who denounce Putin
for defending
the long-suffering victims
of US client state
Nazi terror along Russia’s border.

What comes next
to the war zone?
F-16’s and nukes?

Out of my deep sadness
seeps energy for
solidarity
which I learned to sing about
in my farm worker union days.

In current times
I am moved to rail against
Raytheon, Lockheed Martin,
General Dynamics, Boeing
and the rest of the warmongers
(and their puppets in Congress)
making massive profits
by killing the so-called enemies
of the uni-polar pirates.

I’ve lost friends over this solidarity,
as one said to me,
‘some people who you thought
were your friends
never actually were’.

Hard to swallow that one.

On I trudge
through the deep layers
of sorrow.
My heart beating
so I know I am still alive.

As long as I breathe
I’ll embrace the sadness
and keep showing
solidarity,
it’s all I’ve ever known.

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