Reverie

 

When did I stop listening to songs and anthems of survival?
Songs like “A Change is gonna come” and “What’s going on?”
Songs like “I will survive” and “Respect.”  Songs that formed the
musical and rhythmic background of peace work and feminism
of my middle years. Songs I loved from the Civil Rights movement.
 
When I hear them now, tears flow to the surface of inactivity. 
I hum and feel my feet twitching with the memory of active days. 
Where I live, livelier activists than me started the group “Good Trouble”
to raise enthusiasm for projects of resistance that we old folks can
do: Sending postcards, making phone calls, picketing on the corner.
 
Sitting here., I remember how powerful it felt to be part of movements,
to know it was survival of the powerful, and to claim power
in the name of humanity as we wished it could be.  In reverie, then:
I shake out the stiffness and neglect in my legs and elbows, flex my hands,
and let them dance in the ancient rhythm I knew before putting my feet up.
 
Instead of frowning at the misuse of the world’s resources, in reverie, I travel uphill and down plains, naming things.  No matter how slowly I move.  I move. 
Touching flowers and trees to left and right,  sharing the force of the dance
with life that also moves slowly.  The wind joins us and clouds appear
just before sunset for the wildest glow.  Reverie.  A kind of prayer.

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For my prompt "survival."

My blog poems are rough drafts.

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© 2026 Susan L. Chast