Eric M. Petit
Come up from the Underground
To my brothers and sisters behind the lines, to my friends upon the watchtowers
And walls, in the trenches and tenements; to all my fellow workers in the cause.
Rise up and stretch your limbs. We’ve got mountains to climb and miles yet to go.
You grinders of hard streets, writers of the hard lines to even harder hearts.
You molders and sculptors of words and worlds, combatants to the conformity all.
Do not grow weary or dismayed; do not stay hidden in the tight closets of your minds.
The world has need of your deep heart’s love; a new generation still yearns to be free
And spread its open wings to catch the hot currents, to expose its open heart.
An old generation still clings to each other in the night and fears what they do not understand.
They need your fresh words and strong hearts, to feel your keen spirits like fire.
Light your torches from the bright funeral pyres of this old world and hide no more in the darkness.
Come up from the underground and out from all the shadowed corners of your exile.
Shed the past like waking from dark dreams; let it dissolve and melt away.
Open all the doors and shed the things that keep your rich, bright hearts
Cloaked and obscure. The time for hiding is done. The world’s great need is at hand.
Stand up in the sunlight and forget that which you were and reveal that which you have become
For the black and white world is hungering for the color of your fresh spirits.
The disheartened and disparaged people are still clinging to the empty shadows,
Relegated to the dark corners, sentenced to remain huddled behind the closed doors,
Covering the wonder of their spirits beneath thick blankets of suffocating guilt and shame.
Cast away all doubts and fears; let your hearts unfold like blossoms in the clean sunshine.
Let the new things growing there break free into the desperate world like a dream,
Like a hope that shakes mountains and strengthens the weary bones of the mind.
Be the fresh dream that stalks the world and leaps from heart to broken heart.
Be the dream that rushes wild through the veins and grows the thick roots of hope.
Be the dream that scatters the darkness and devours nightmares like the dawn.
You are the dreamers, the poets and painters, the writers of this bright new song;
The anthem of a new generation. We are no longer the ones who can hide behind
The thick walls of hearts and write the sadness into the stones with our blood.
We are no longer those who live in the windowless houses of the whitewashed world.
We are the ones bursting forth from all the earth; the children of the dreams,
Stepping out of the darkness to loose into the world the burning things written in hearts.
We are the ones standing upon the precipice, the threshold of this new day,
Pouring out the blood into the pages and paintings, into the hearts and minds.
To my brothers and sisters behind the lines, to those of you who are about to fly; I salute you.