PAD - Day 19 - Authority Poem 1. Avowed-They Do

Lilla Frerichs 

Avowed - They Do 

Standing now side by side 

in this new way -she with head 

still stubbly shorn -an infant owl 

blinking - he with skin hanging from 

his hulking frame - their skeletal fingers inter-

twined – no marriage this would have been before - 

but before was buried under boots – burned in acrid 

ash rising repeatedly –again, again, again, surreally 
insanely - still –until the gates opened and they tumbled 
out – here to clean water – a wash – a meal - to this street 

on this morning - unbearded rabbi thinly singing sweet 

remembered words -in this cobbled crumbled side-street, 

their ark -  the spread of sky – a white sheet thrown from an 
open window by unseen hands –they inhale in still breathless 

wonder-stretch their toes in shoes – she feels his heart beating 

in her finger-tips and when the word ‘authority’ is intoned – 

she turns from flashes of storm boots and snarls of shepherd dogs, 

rattle-cattle cars and forever unspeakable violation -rewrites authority 
now - here - with each breathed breath –belly bulge- stretching against 
her thin clean dress – the banish atrocity of authority begun – 
no hint of stumble in stalwart reclamation of self and future – 
beyond the cool morning of crumbled streets the shine of 
hot sun spills as honey on their heads –spills on shoulders 
straightened- these children of a promised land –standing 
together -sacred remembrants of all that was – 

Stirring in innocence yet reborn – 

legacies of light –  re-writing 

authority in the sparkling 

sand of time to be – 

seal this, their vow –

from crumbling street – 

There and Then, 

Here and Now – 

Wherever – Forever –

in clear voice

they 

do