Cradle Song
—for Luciana, one month old
One squall from your tiny body, fevered
in the night, outweighs an electorate,
undoes the disgust that knots up my throat
with talk of power and its Founding Fathers.
You’re not the first to come into the world
where bad men bleed the meek, lie about it,
and smile. Burrow deeper into my shirt,
arching bluebell of my most hopeful hour.
For far too few years I know you’ll be safe
in our home, but after that your nation
will try to teach you its collateral
vocabularies of shackle and pledge.
Don’t learn them. Your birthright is no baton.
Don’t wield it. Beacon it, this broken hymn,
this lullaby your father sings to you,
made of spindrift love and rage and larkspur.
by Dante Di Stefano
from What Saves Us —Poems of Empathy
and Outrage in the age of Trump
Edited by Martín Espada