I write from bed today:
Charlottesville bleeds, bloody hands
That keep hope at bay
Like a smoldering gun and smoldering sands
That pierce the breast and burn the feet
Of those who from injustice ne’er retreat.

I write from bed today:
My heart is heavy, my body weak;
I know not how to slay
Immovable evil, nor reverse the bleak
Forecast of dark and bitter cold
That drives the young to soon grow old.

I write from bed today
And wonder why bother to rise at all;
What can the unarmed poet say
To save the green leaf from death in Fall?
Ah, but rise I must:
E pluribus plures, in God we cannot trust.

On August 12, 2017, a “white nationalist” (read that: white supremacist, neo-Nazi) rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent when a 20-year-old white male intentionally drove his car into a group of counter-protestors, killing one and wounding 19. In response, Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, decried violence and hatred “on all sides,” leading to bipartisan condemnation of his refusal to disavow white terrorism and white supremacists, many of whom are ardent supporters of his.