Grace is the law of descending movement.

          Simone Weil

You think it’s like that night the bioluminescence 

shone in the dark wake of a ship— 

or like that day in a dim church when the monks 

began to chant.  You were elated.  

You knew then you were part of something greater.

But moments like this only happen 

now and then, and in a way they don’t matter.

Every day a woman sits in a room in her quiet house. 

Sometimes she notices the rain.  Sometimes she doesn’t.  

She sits for twenty minutes.  Sometimes thirty.  

Later, at the edge of the protest, 

where a man in a red bandana is shouting at her 

and her friends, and people are taking out 

their phones and making videos and shouting back, 

she walks over—she doesn’t think 

about this—it’s not a choice—

she walks over to the man on the edge, 

who is pacing now, yelling louder and louder,  

and reaches out her hand.   

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