I asked Eli Zaretsky the other day if he could post something about where he finds his inspiration, how he keeps up the struggle. I don’t always agree with Eli about his opinions, and I am concerned that he mirrors the all too usual approach on the Left of saying what we are against, without attending enough to how we keep going. But at the same time I see a man who has kept going, and I want to know the sources of his inspiration. This week Alana Price and I visited a strongly left organization, AlterNet, and I asked the same kinds of questions of Don Hazen, the executive editor. I reported our conversation yesterday and said I took Don’s jaded or cynical style with a pinch of salt. We talked about nourishment, what keeps us going in the struggle, where we find hope. Today he has posted this. I wouldn’t normally copy a whole post but the AlterNet blog isn’t well suited to presenting poetry, because of the way the ads jut into it, so I am breaking the normal courtesy rule here:

Looking for Inspiration? Try This.

by Don Hazen

People are feeling in the dumps these days, and for very good reasons. Everywhere you turn, there is corruption and exploitation by corporations trying to squeeze every last penny out of our pockets, and it seldom seems we get much in return. Elected officials from the top on down, seem to respond far more to those with money bags, than the rest of us. But you know this already.

What do we do? Well let’s just say that giving up, as much as it is attractive, is not an option. AlterNet’s former Tech Director Deanna Zandt, who by the way has a new book coming out in June: Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking … sent me the Marge Piercy poem, “The Low Road.”

It’s tough, but inspiring. I wanted to share it with everyone this weekend. It is a fitting valentine to all of you who don’t give up, won’t give up, and will support your friends, family those you care about, and those who need it the most. And the hell with Washington, D.C.

The Low Road

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t blame them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organisation. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

–Marge Piercy

Copyright 2006, Middlemarsh, Inc.

Hear this poem, and many of her political poems in Marge Piercy’s own voice in her CD Louder: We Can’t Hear You Yet! or find it in her famous collection The Moon is Always Female.