The cold snow moon reminds us thatfor you, no more rocking chairs or sunsets,cicadas or cockroaches, or the mashedbibles of Christian Nationalists who tryto justify your murder in the name of god.By what ruler to reduce things, hard-edged& splintering, can the crimes of fascistsbe measured and brought to justice?The brook of your soul was by no meanspiddly nor your faith fickle nor your love.For them you were martyred, shotby the uniformed, masked thugsof the empire grown rotten with hate & fear,a toxic patriotism clothed in a ragged flagand swinging a cross like a war clubto impose the right of crude might & of greed.By the moon, we will not stand by cowedand cowering as they demand of us to be,but howling like coyotes at the snow moonwe will raise our voices in your nameand by our silence not be damned.
Rafael Jesús González, Prof. Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature and Mexican & Latin American Studies, has been four times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, was honored by the National Council of Teachers of English for his writing in 2003, received a César E. Chávez Lifetime Award 2013 and one by the city of Berkeley 2015. He was named Berkeley's first Poet Laureate 2017. Also a visual artist, he has exhibited at the Oakland Museum of California, the Mexican Museum of San Francisco, and other venues. http://rjgonzalez.blogspot.com/ (Given the enormous reaction to the murder of Renee Nicole Good, Portside is publishing 2 poems this week about her death. We’ll return to our one a week schedule next week.)
