is this the worst   colin's grandfather

hears me   is quiet a

while   the afternoon has become evening

the hills are golden   the live oaks beginning

to show color   the stone walls

of the house and winery are pinkish in

the last light   it is   he say   the most willfully

malicious   there were

others whose egos led to ruined lives

to avarice and corruption   there have

been liars and cheats   there

have been the ignorant   there have been the

self-serving   but none have done

it with such glee   and been cheered by so many

~

i ask marketa   we are in bed   if this is

like the days that led to

the sametová revoluce   the velvet

revolution   though she was yet three

years from her

birth   what she remembers from history

class   from her parents   it was

an uprising   artists

students   laborers   took to the streets   it

was unstoppable   i sigh   this   she waves

her hand trying

to show the whole of it   is 

passivity   sarcasm   cynicism   late

night comedy and tweets 

~

it is hard to make love with thoughts of

late night comedy   of

tweets   cluttering my mind   but 

we do   and sleep   when i wake i

know nothing will

have changed   we are passive   that

our contributions   our phone banks   our

door-to-door isn't

enough   we do not   and apparently

cannot   understand who and what we

are up against   we

assume too much   we assume their

cares  and our are aligned   they are not   we

assume the worst of each other

~

saturday   through the window   the 

vineyard is clouded in

fog   we make love   why not   we

work hard all week   what does it

matter   one

day becomes the next   it will end

eventually   after all   it was only a couple

years ago   that all

was bright   we   all of us   had hope   that

is gone   there will be no revolution   velvet

or otherwise   we

will tweet and make love   drip

sarcasm   despair   while we

are undone   our will subsumed by lattes

~

has marketa's revolution mattered   she

left her home   came

here for work   something better   came

here in time to see hope fade   devolve

into this   her green

card a ticket to the show   maybe it

did matter   she says we are not there   not

yet   though why crying

babies taken from crying mothers'

arms is not enough   why the mockery and

derision i wrote of

yesterday is not enough   why the championing of

bigotry is not enough   what is enough   what

will trigger the collective will   who will fill the streets

~

colin is already at work   he does not talk

about this   he

is quiet   but one day he will

meet the right person   and that person will

know others   like

minded   woke   it may not play

out as revolution   and it will be too

late for some   some

people   some species   some environments   ours   but

it will play out in some form   a shift   not yet

first   we must admire

pinkish sunsets   write poetry   wait

for the colins and ashes to save us   surely they will   for

now   marketa and i make love