No One Is Ever Ready, No One Ever Has Children
Before you begin that revolution, remember
how many times it's happened: first the moment
of blood and joy, then the warm time
of hope as all needs melt into one
loud cry, but afterward the period
of rebelliousness for its own sake, abrupt testing, and
inevitable contention as to who rules--after which,
in the heavy-lidded peace exhaustion brings,
one sees the justice of thrusting aside the ones
who started it: despite heroic efforts they abandoned
vast tracts of time to the everyday and later,
made it plain there were hidden progressive dimensions,
invisible forward points, advanced axes, even
great plains of revolutionary belief,
action, development, and social practice
neglected, missed, betrayed and thus made future
instead of past, misfortune rather than fame,
judgment on rather than justice for.
But if, knowing all this
you will that you will, if knowing all this in advance you
advance, remember
revolution never ends until
you do. Yet it is better to die by bleeding
freely than dying by halves week by week.
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