Hoping for Rain They call it a celebration. Two hundred and fifty years of marching feet, of folded flags and final salutes, of uniforms that once meant service, now pressed into a parade for the man in the red tie with his name stitched across the sky in smoke and steel. They roll out tanks like party favors, shine boots like champagne flutes, paint the cannons with the gloss of nostalgia, while the poor are told their hunger is their fault. Medicaid is slashed, food stamps trimmed to confetti that will blow into the gutters of D.C., even as the spectacle flares to frame the “Commander-in- Chief’s” birthday grin. No mention of the children detained, the fathers taken in the night by ICE in unmarked vans, their screams drowned out by a flyover of fighter jets— roaring louder than truth, than protest, than prayer. Outside the barricades, a woman holds a sign that simply says: “This is not what I served for.” And a man beside her mutters, “I’m just hoping for rain.” Rain to blur the cameras, to smear the makeup, to rust the spectacle and soak the velvet rope that divides power from people. Rain that remembers what honor used to mean. Rain that refuses to bow to gold-plated egos and autocratic fanfare. Let it come. Let it interrupt. Let it fall like truth— uninvited, unapologetic. Let it wash the stage clean.
Tomorrow, tanks are set to roll into D.C. for a president’s birthday bash—a multimillion-dollar extravaganza—while the poor go without and families are torn apart.
We don’t need this.
We need a storm strong enough to shut it down.
This is my poem: Hoping for Rain.
#PoetryAsProtest #HopingForRain
