(via Sam Sax: "Ode to Those Who Block Tunnels and Bridges")
Sam Sax
teach us there can be movement in stillness. in every broken syllable of traffic a syllabus that says while you are suffering we are all going to be unwell—let us instead distill business as usual down to the speed of a tree eating light. as usual, business is built from freight trains and warships even when ‘it’s just coffee.’ these bridges should only connect the living, so when the living turn again toward death worship it’s time to still the delivery of plastics and red meats to the galas of venture capital. to reject our gods if they are not the gods who teach us all that comes from dirt returns to it holy— the holiest word i know is no. no more money for the endless throat of money. no more syllogisms that permission endless suffering. no more. and on the eighth day of a holiday meant to represent a people fighting occupation my teachers who stretch a drop of oil into a week of light take each other’s arms across eight bridges of this settler colony singing prayers older than any country as the chevron burns in the distance. o stilted vernacular of life— o pedagogs of the godly pausing— what mycelia spreads its speaking limbs beneath the floors of our cities. the only holy land i know is where life is. in the story i was taught alongside my first language it takes god six days to make the terrible world and on seventh day he rested and on the eighth we blocked traffic.
Copyright © 2025 by Sam Sax. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 20, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
