The Gospel of Ruth

By Jay Sizemore 

The purpose of dissent
is to speak for tomorrow,

to fight for what’s true,
convincing others to follow you

to a future with nine women
ruling the highest of courts,

none of them a token.
To a land where the immigrants

can become the best of us,
where a person’s dignity

cannot be usurped by a stranger
and independence

is the most precious of human rights.
The next generation

need not be so deaf
to the cries of the searched

and the seized, let the history books
be written

by those who have been
thirteen year old girls.