Is This The Moment
Is this the moment that tips the balance
from complacency to action
and wakes us up?
Is this the moment,
as a lunar new year
celebration in Monterey
Park turns to mourning—
eleven lives lost
and as many wounded,
and four mushroom farmers
in Half-Moon Bay
return to the earth
they tilled,
we take action
on guns?
Is this the moment,
as another young Black man,
not a number but a name—
Tyre Nichols,
is tased and beaten to death
in Memphis,
we take action
on racial violence?
Is this the moment,
when life as we know it
teeters on the threat
of nuclear warfare,
we take action
on global tyranny,
including that
of this nation?
Is this the moment,
in the aftermath
of nature’s backlash
to our wayward ways,
we take action
on climate?
Or is this just another moment
that passes us by,
stirs a bubble of outrage
that quickly dissolves
in the busy-ness of our
lives