<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" class="">The New Breed</div><div dir="auto" class=""> </div><div dir="auto" class=""> <span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class="">for Emma Gonzalez and the other student activists</i></span></div><div dir="auto" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" class="">I see her on TV, screaming into a microphone.</div><div dir="auto" class="">Her head is shaved and she is beautiful </div><div dir="auto" class="">and seventeen, and her high school was just shot up, </div><div dir="auto" class="">she's had to walk by friends lying in their own blood,</div><div dir="auto" class="">her teacher bleeding out,</div><div dir="auto" class="">and she's my daughter, the one I never had,</div><div dir="auto" class="">and she's your daughter and everyone's daughter</div><div dir="auto" class="">and she's her own woman, in the fullness of her young fire,</div><div dir="auto" class="">calling bullshit on politicians who take money from the gun-makers.</div><div dir="auto" class="">Tears rain down her face but she doesn't stop shouting</div><div dir="auto" class="">she doesn't apologize she keeps calling them out,</div><div dir="auto" class="">all of them all of us</div><div dir="auto" class="">who didn't do enough to stop this thing.</div><div dir="auto" class="">And you can see the gray faces of those who have always held power</div><div dir="auto" class="">contort, utterly baffled </div><div dir="auto" class="">to face this new breed of young woman,</div><div dir="auto" class="">not silky, not compliant,</div><div dir="auto" class="">not caring if they call her a ten or a troll. </div><div dir="auto" class="">And she cries but she doesn't stop</div><div dir="auto" class="">yelling truth into the microphone,</div><div dir="auto" class="">though her voice is raw and shaking</div><div dir="auto" class="">and the Florida sun is molten brass.</div><div dir="auto" class="">I'm three thousand miles away, thinking how</div><div dir="auto" class="">Neruda said The blood of the children </div><div dir="auto" class="">ran through the streets</div><div dir="auto" class="">without fuss, like children's blood. </div><div dir="auto" class="">Only now she is, they are </div><div dir="auto" class="">raising a fuss, shouting down the walls of Jericho,</div><div dir="auto" class="">and it's not that we road-weary elders </div><div dir="auto" class="">have been given the all-clear exactly,</div><div dir="auto" class="">but our shoulders do let down a little, </div><div dir="auto" class="">we breathe from a deeper place,</div><div dir="auto" class="">we say to each other, </div><div dir="auto" class="">Well, it looks like the baton</div><div dir="auto" class="">may be passing </div><div dir="auto" class="">to these next runners and they are</div><div dir="auto" class="">fleet as thought, </div><div dir="auto" class="">fiery as stars,</div><div dir="auto" class="">and we take another breath </div><div dir="auto" class="">and say to each other, The baton</div><div dir="auto" class="">has been passed, and we set off then</div><div dir="auto" class="">running hard behind them.</div><div dir="auto" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Alison Luterman</div></body></html>