Cedar Chest

They say I am safest
behind a door, behind a veil,
behind a silence stitched to my tongue.

They say the sky is too wide for me,
the book too heavy,
the road too long.

So they fold me
like winter cloth
and store me
in the cedar chest of custom.

No schoolbell for my morning.
No wage for my noon.
No horizon for my evening.

Only walls
tall, righteous,
outlasting seasons.

But history has a habit.
Of catching fire.

When the borders tremble
and the war drums begin,
when every hand that can hold a weapon
is sent to the wind…

…suddenly,
the same hands,
in the same breath
that taught me to lower my gaze,
remember my name.

Who will keep the fields breathing?
Who will wake the factories at dawn?
Who will stitch the uniforms,
count the rations, heal the bleeding,
carry the nation on unarmed shoulders?

They loosen my shackles.
They ask me to stand beside them.

Front line.
Middle line.
Back line.
Wherever possible.
However possible.

The lines blur.
I was once folded away
in that cedar chest of custom.
Now they break it open
and unfold me.
Because nature keeps count
of what the world cannot run without.

So, forgive me
if sometimes, in the dark,
I hear a distant thunder
and wish
it were the war drums.