Accordion Poster - The Low Road

The Low Road

A Poem Of Hope And Solidarity

The Low Road, written in 1980 only five years after the Viet Nam War ended, is a journey of political redemption. It takes us from the very real threat of repression and assassination to the strength and power of collective action. It is an ode to the necessity of struggle, to the imperative of movement building, to the never-ending pursuit of justice and liberation.

by Marge Piercy

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 stop 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 organization.
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 SCW ©2019

"I always appreciate Marge Piercy's unique mixture of common sense with uncommon joyful insight. She's political and sensual, astute and wild, truthful and always a step beyond..."
                                                                                              -Joy Harjo