Yesterday, Occupy: Oakland was cleared away. Today, high above the street camped in a tree, one person Zachary Running Wolf, remains  . . . 

But what else remains floating around the plaza, the city, the nation? All the difficulties, all the unfairness, the inequities, the misery. 

Do something, Washington D.C.

Start by revising the tax code so that richest 1% and the corporations pay their fair share, forgive student loans, fund public education, ensure health care for all. Stop pandering to corporations and the insurance industry. Regulate the insurance industry. Cap corporate salaries. Start thinking sanely and compassionately about the health, education, and welfare of all Americans.

 
Two Ends of One Day

In pre-dawn hours, in creased blue light, lodgers
at the Occupy: Oakland site are swept away,
the tents removed. Police wearing gloves
collect supplies, now classed as trash, toss
it all in garbage trucks. Midday, my dog
eyes red squirrels chittering in cork trees.
I keep my eyes focused on the farthest shore,
my heart on sea birds atop the air, wanting
to erase the pain lodged inside of knowing.
When home again, I try for hours to tape
together a book that opens with a raid
of a homeless encampment beneath a bridge,
the shooting death of a giant iguana chained
to a cinderblock under a tree, unable to run away.
My dog chewed the book while I was out.
I hadn’t finished reading. I can rescue most of it
but twenty pages – no doubt the hinge that swings
the story out and in – are gone, digested
I’m sure. If I continue reading, I will be guessing,
walking around that gaping hole. I put aside
the tape and go outside to the slant sun, work
an hour or so in the back garden, quiet now
in dim November days, cooler, damper. I trim
the thick-stemmed top-heavy stick collards, fill
the dog-dug hole in the strawberry bed, drag
the trimmings to the compost heap, and then
drive again to the shore to walk as the sun
veils the mountains in glow shell pink, skins
the sea to raw electric blue tipped with gold.
I return, driving past the muddied plaza, the erased
camp, the gathering crowds, and sit with others
in a room high above the street, speaking of war
and books and dream. Gunshots below interrupt,
then brittle lights and sirens. I step outside
and find myself standing on a frail place, knowing
if I take one more step, the earth will break
and I will fall not to the ground but upward
into the dark outside the stars.