The Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti

#The shoemaker’s last, the peddler’s final cry—

Our words, our lives, our pains are nothing, said.

A world of fear let condemnation fly,

And all our simple, honest labors shed

Like worthless husks. The verdict was the lie,

The promised justice, a corrupted thread.

But from that pinnacle of pain, a cast—

An arc is thrown across the future’s night.

The tyrant’s triumph is not built to last

Upon the tears of children, and the blight

Of stolen breath. This agony amassed

Becomes a seed, a slow, unyielding light.

For dignity, clothed in humility,

Is the true triumph, veritable, deep.

It is the dream that sets the captive free,

The heart’s own truth that barbarism cannot keep.

It is the lasso from the past, now thrown aside,

The final, quiet power where the tyrants sleep.

And in the ground where fallen despots lie,

Forgotten, in their world of insignificance,

A different seed is reaching for the sky.

Not born of power, but of frail persistence,

The dream the heart could never let die

Knocks aside the grave of brutal distance.

So let the agony be our refrain,

The bitter triumph in the face of wrong.

The arc bends slowly, through the sun and rain,

And in our wounded memory, we grow strong.

The world may slip to barbarism once again, But forward still the heart drives us along.