And now
it is no longer the word
I
the accomplished word
the password to begin the world.
And now
now it is the word
we.
And now,
now has come the hour of the countersong.
We the railroad workers,
we the students,
we the miners,
we the peasants,
we the wretched of the earth,
the populators of the world,
the heroes of everyday work,
with our love and our fists,
enamored of hope.
We the white-skinned,
the black-skinned, the yellow-skinned,
the Indians, the copper-skinned,
the Moors and dark-skinned,
the red-skinned and olive-skinned,
the blonds and platinum blonds,
united by work,
by misery, by silence,
by the cry of a solitary man
who in the middle of the night,
with a perfect whip,
with a meager wage,
with a gold dagger and an iron face,
wildly cries out
I
and hears the crystal-clear echo
of a shower of blood
that relentlessly feeds on us
ourselves
among the docks receding in the distance
ourselves
below the skyline of the factories
ourselves

in the flower, in the pictures, in the tunnels
ourselves
in the tall structure on the way to orbit
ourselves
on the way to marble halls
ourselves
on the way to prisons
ourselves . . .