Sarah I ponders "Who Am I?"

1/26 Sarah Isaacson

In Cape Town

Who am I to stand and watch

A fallen innocent cry for change?

Who am I to declare myself

A vessel that will save them all?

Who am I to be something other

Than a useless object displayed on a shelf?

Who am I to accept invisibility

To let my privilege relinquish responsibility?

Who am I in this place of poverty

Of anguish, fear, and rejection?

Who am I in this place built on the oppressed

Who share a forgotten story?

Who am I to be afraid

When so few have what I take for granted?

Who am I not to feel ashamed

For wanting to just be content with me?

Who am I to enjoy a coffee crush

To be irritated with a bus breakdown?

Who am I to enjoy the simple pleasures

When a tin roof, a single meal, is another human’s treasures?

Who am I to relish in the rising sun

When darkness claims so many?

Who am I to visit a museum

When those the apartheid affected are banned?

Who am I to be American

For my citizenship to grant me respect?

Who am I to complain about Trump

When I have the freedom to leave the country?

Who am I in this beautiful place

That was built on broken backs?

Who am I meant to be

When so few here are free?

2017 Sisters March

With our Sisters in Cape Town,

We march alongside the ones in DC,

We will not let that nasty man keep us down,

We will make the whole world see,

That the government is for the people,

That is serves to protect all walks of life,

Whom do not all bow to the same steeple,

Whose various colours and genders face never-ending strife.

For we march not only for the female-identified,

But for the oppressed all over the world,

For those whose Justice has never tried,

For the colours that cannot be swirled,

With the ideologies of white supremacy,

With the corporate and big business goals,

With the crippling reign of patriarchy,

With every thought, opinion, and culture they stole.

We march for the Obamas,

Who gave the racially divided world hope.

We march for the Latino and Latinas,

Whose government is tying the noose of their rope.

We march for the indigenous peoples,

Whose significance was lost with violence and fear.

We march for the bald eagle,

Whose freedom call is meant for all to hear.

We live in a world where not all are equal,

Where privilege and social norms win,

Where Trump aims to write, “America: The Prequel,”

So back hundreds of years the clocks will spin,

Where we are forced into eras of regression,

Where progress once gained is forgotten,

Where all different are thrown into submission,

Where the sacred tree of life begins to rotten.

But we will not send women back to the home,

We will not stand for Blacks being enslaved,

We will not allow Muslims to be hunted with a fine-tooth comb,

We will not let indigenous be buried in federal graves.

We will learn from our past mistakes,

We will let our cultures intertwine and create,

A world that can be claimed as unified and great,

Where together we fight and believe that love trumps hate.

Sarah bottom row, far right