The Hour of Kindness

by Sasha West

We came to them begging 

lay down our empty hands 

beside microphones in committee rooms asking

them to drop the sharp rocks

from their mouths

gently, not spitting, not aiming them 

at our children’s bodies

Let the flesh of our children occupy 

the bathrooms and hallways

unmasked, unbruised, unremarked upon

Let their bodies be as sacred as the deer, the red panda, the dog 

and fur the children curl their fingers into

But the children have piled the stones

in their minds

The children have heard the stories of stone built 

into church wall and law

They read their names in the banned books

The children practice the rocks against

their flesh to callous it

So we bring the children to you

You gentle

their minds

You know the revolution begins in only letting kindness

permeate the body 

You earned that hard-won, now bone-deep belief

that each tangle of neuron and cell

is enough, is tended and tending

that the children can lay down the sticks and stones

turn them into forts and sound suits

woven caves and crenellated castles

You know they come from a long line 

of backbone, you know they can bend

the arc to joy

Your mouth shares the words that mean 

freedom, knowing words still have power

that each adjective holds whole the story

of our time, and with each sound you let them be

leopard and leap, play and belly-true, consent as courage,

self with velvet antlers, nine-tailed fox holding the secrets 

of the world we haven’t heard yet, the twitch of a tail and pounce

There they are at the end of your words 

together, standing, a pack of furred and feathered creatures

glittering and steel-strong

held vulnerable and silly in each other’s arms

They are our children

and we needed you

to give them a childhood