Unvanquished

If we sifted through the faded dust of our ancient past

in the long-lost fact and fiction blurred into folklore, 

we might see how we built castles made of sand,

waiting to be washed away by the sea of time,

daring to defy our destiny, choosing to overlook our fate of oblivion

relentless, resilient, resolute

In human hubris we crowned ourselves king, transcending our kingdom,

once hordes of warring clans abandoning our tribal instincts and

escaping our mercurial nature to become creators, debaters, scholars, designers and dreamers

who constructed glittering palaces, cosmopolitan cities and sweeping bridges

with laws like gossamer threads tethering us to civility,

tying the tattered shreds of a fragmented world into 

a united race unwilling to surrender without fight, audacious enough to declare equality as birthright,

with the realization of this dream of peace and justice for all in sight,

emerging unvanquished

With our gold-plated crowns we stand in regal aura,

power lying not in our wealth or strength, but in the depth of our imagination

In that liminal space bathed in ethereal glow between the abstract and concrete

where visionaries and idealists wander, we connect the stars

which shimmer like flecks of silver in the midnight sky into constellations 

and look above and beyond for strength and purpose to cloak us in certitude

as we search for our origins

But even gold tarnishes

As centuries of injustice and the dull ache of disillusionment leave masses jaded

aspirations sinking, like a childhood dream now all but faded

From seeming powerlessness stems apathy, lack of empathy--

we fail to recognize that each loss is a light extinguished, a story’s abridgement,

Our victories and creations seem hollow as armies of men slay their brothers without sorrow

The absence of dissent, despite fear, is still complicity

Truth trembles in the face of silence and willful ignorance 

and when hatred is wielded into cruelty and terror, our delicate constructs collapse

But even then, hope glimmers on distant shores

For we are the heirs to a legacy only we can define

We wait on the cusp of this new chapter where we are no longer chained, bound or divided into 

the oppressors and oppressed, the conquerors and the conquered, the powerful and the powerless;

We each stand tall, adorned with our own crowns, not because of the absence of adversity

but in spite of it, reclaiming our purpose and realizing our power, liberated at last

When we speak, our individual voices coalesce, rising in a collective roar

For when we couple courage with conviction—we will soar

like a kaleidoscope of butterflies, magical in harmony

But our metamorphosis is incomplete

The future lies before us, vast and wondrous, pens clasped in our hands, ink to paper, we write it 

our story is still unfinished