"A Rising Voice" by Robert L. Arnold

They have moved the lines again
quiet as a storm that has learned patience
loud as everything it touches

you can feel it
in the way rooms tighten
in the way laughter carries too easily
in the way truth is asked to lower its voice

there is a chaos to it now
not random
but practiced
a kind of noise meant to make you doubt
what you already know

and somewhere beneath it
something older stirs

not memory exactly
something closer to recognition

as if the country has been here before
standing in its own weather
trying to decide what it is

I hear him … somewhere in it
reminding us
that not everything faced can be changed
but nothing changes until it is faced

so we face it
even when the sky leans heavy
even when the ground feels uncertain
even when the voice inside your chest
does not come out steady

you raise it anyway

because silence is what the storm is built for
quiet is how it keeps its shape

and hope … real hope
is not gentle

it is a hand on your back
moving you forward
through wind you did not ask for

it is the long walk
toward something that does not yet exist
but must

we have crossed in worse weather
we have walked into it before
not because we were unafraid
but because we understood the cost of turning back

and still
through all of it
there is this
a choice

not abstract
not distant
but waiting

a ballot
a voice made visible
a line that cannot be redrawn once it is cast

so do not let the storm
teach you to whisper

raise it
even if it shakes

volume has a way of steadying truth

and truth
when carried far enough
has a way of becoming
the future

—Robert L. Arnold