This Tuesday, Today

This Tuesday, Today

Wrapped in fall’s cool dark morning we queue
to cast our votes for a bright future.

The savior de jour, a President,
someone to lead our promise land.

Polling places churches and libraries
diverse like the voters.

Ours, a library
and our sanctuary.

Chats with neighbors we hardly know
move time’s seconds along.

Some stoic as they move
closer to the warm entrance.

Is there significance in
the exchange or its lack?

The time has come, will our state change
from red to blue?

Will we pick the new guy
or see what Obama can really do?

You will vote with your heart
and so will I.

We carry the weight of citizenship
to machines and private booths.

An act of privacy we manage to maintain,
through Facebook and Twitter we give our secrets away.

In this republic of free enterprise and speech
It is not the job but our values on the line.

Yours may require a different leader
than mine as we pray for different things.

Today our choices interweave which rights we keep
and who gets to hold them.

Tomorrow’s peace of mind entangles our choices made.
Civil Rights, still a war we vote on.

A few of you will find justice
for holding rights of some at bay.

Some of you will vote for rights to full
citizenship for myself and others.

On this Tuesday, today
it is up to us to maintain our rights.

On this Tuesday, today
it is up to us to honor those on our front lines.

On this Tuesday, today
it is up to us to celebrate our right to our say.

On this Tuesday, today
it is up to us to define what freedom means.

(It needs some smoothing out but it is today so I am sharing it as it.)