“One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the Earth”
                   Gloria Steinhem

We discussed politics through the night.

At daybreak watched sunrise from rooftop.

We sang along at Gerde’s Folk City.  Memorized

lyrics from “The Times They Are A Changin”.

We rode busses down to D.C.

Marched in our power.  Believed our revolution.

These days there’s less energy to protest so loud.  But human

rights are in danger. What to do besides shouting?

I talk to the grandkids about privilege and race.

Little guy listens intently, how his white skin provides

benefits not afforded brown cousins.

“That’s not fair”, he says, with the clarity of child mind.

We stopped the war in Vietnam.

Now I am matriarch, family gatekeeper.*

Micky Shorr is a retired psychotherapist and school social worker. Her poems have been published in a number of literary journals, and in the award winning anthology “A Slant of Life”.