(excerpt)


Say these words when you lie down and when you rise up,

when you go out and when you return. In times of mourning

and in times of joy. Inscribe them on your doorposts,

embroider them on your garments, tattoo them on your shoulders,

teach them to your children, your neighbors, your enemies,

recite them in your sleep, here in the cruel shadow of empire:

Another world is possible.


imagine winning. This is your sacred task.

This is your power. Imagine

every detail of winning, the exact smell of the summer streets

in which no one has been shot, the muscles you have never

unclenched from worry, gone soft as newborn skin,

the sparkling taste of food when we know

that no one on earth is hungry, that the beggars are fed,

that the old man under the bridge and the woman

wrapping herself in thin sheets in the back seat of a car,

and the children who suck on stones,

nest under a flock of roofs that keep multiplying their shelter.

Lean with all your being towards that day

when the poor of the world shake down a rain of good fortune

out of the heavy clouds, and justice rolls down like waters.

Defend the world in which we win as if it were your child.

It is your child.

Defend it as if it were your lover.

It is your lover.

When you inhale and when you exhale

breathe the possibility of another world

into the 37.2 trillion cells of your body

until it shines with hope.

Then imagine more. 

Don’t waver. Don’t let despair sink its sharp teeth

Into the throat with which you sing. Escalate your dreams.

Make them burn so fiercely that you can follow them down

any dark alleyway of history and not lose your way.

Make them burn clear as a starry drinking gourd

Over the grim fog of exhaustion, and keep walking.

Hold hands. Share water. Keep imagining.

So that we, and the children of our children’s children

may live



haggadah Section:
Source: http://www.auroralevinsmorales.com/blog/vahavta