Most of us have been away from the gym too long.
Our freedom-loving muscles have grown slack.
We had not fully recognized the slack.
Others noted the weakness
of our democratic body.
We went about our day aware that each act
became more difficult, more strenuous.
Success became less assured, more tenuous.
While we grew soft, life grew hard.
We could no longer lift our children above our heads.
Their safety could not be assured;
not only on the playground monkey bars,
but behind their desk, or sitting in church pews.
Even our voices became more feeble
as we stopped the exercise of free speech,
and bemoaned the simple act
of marching down the street.
But others watched and saw our weakness grow.
Knew we were no longer paying attention
to our former strength and ignoring our work-outs,
while we flaunted more the medals on our chests
and the trophies on our shelves.
We no longer recalled how we earned those awards.
We forgot the daily struggle at life’s gymnasium
to keep the muscles of self-governance
strong enough to take on new challenges and ideas.
Our weakness made us run from, instead of with,
others racing along the path to freedom.
We envied their success, our own no longer moving
us forward and ahead.
The only way the weak can win is by holding others back.
The truly strong can win by running hard and long.
We all looked away from those who cheat
to claim a win they do not deserve.
It feels too close to every nerve
now weakened within each lax muscle;
a republic struggling just to stay upright.
Religion becomes the panacea of anxious nights.
We can only hope our muscle-memory
of freedoms gained in the past
is strong enough to make our democracy last.
Back to the gym. Walk the streets. Shout the speech
that you recall in memory grown weak.
Build back the muscle needed to wield your voting power.
Now is the hour
to get back to the gym.
Be strong and carry on!
annarino writes 
IT IS ALWAYS IN THE NUMBERS
Reports indicate attendance at NO KINGS events is somewhere between 5.2-8.2 billion persons. It is possibly much larger than any assumed count. For example. If one counts those registered with organizations who counted attendees, one simply gets a flat number of those who bothered to join through the organization. I registered and reported my attendance. By the time I attended three more persons joined me. They remain uncounted officially. I am sure this is true for families and friends of most attendees.
In the past, for individual rallies, law enforcement using drones mapped the crowd and made estimates using “so many persons per square inch” of their photos to create crowd attendance figures. While major big cities may have done so, mine did not. Local news did not. nor did Law enforcement in my locality. I am certain this happened in much of small town America. So when these numbers are posted, assume they are sorely undercounted.
Nevertheless, no matter the total count, the wide extent of events across the country in red and blue states and cities, in small hamlets, on rural roadway intersections, outside nursing homes and senior care facilities is significant. And, such small groups are likely not part of the count. Yet, the fact they showed such resilience and disgust for what is happening and took to the streets gives us cause to hope we can face down fascism and remove those traitors to our core American beliefs and to our Constitution from office; from School Board, Board of Health, City and County commissioners, mayors and city council, to Congress and the White House.
Local politics is sometime hard to unravel, especially for races where platitudes replace true positions and no party affiliation is required. We have tools those who came before us did not have, the internet and email addresses. Ask candidates for specific position statements. If they do not answer or provide gibberish, there is your answer. Be an informed voter. Help register new voters. Help motivate and take voters to the polls. We must now march to the polls as we marched through the streets. As Winston Churchill said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Now, the hard work begins. Please remember the joy you felt on No Kings Day and let it propel you to even greater efforts. We now know for certain, what we believed. We are not alone.
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