For a long time,

the Spanish youth occupied public squares in every city across Spain. They

fought for jobs, civil rights, democracy, and a chance to be 

heard.

I dedicate this poem to my friends and their cause

The sounds of revolutionary cries outside the window

I can hear as clear as the morning after a storm

 We’re in the thick of it now

Slow boiling, like a pot on the stove

The buzzing of a hundred tongues chanting as one

We Will Not Be Moved No vamos No mudamos

Speaker phones blare the message to the world

Silent firecracker waiting to explode into an idea

A movement is beginning to bubble up

as quickly as the tents we set up for the sit-ins

listen to the sizzle of the sun on our concrete bedrooms

the beads of sweat roll down faces enthralled with a sense of injustice

We Will Not Be Moved

Rings true in the songs, in our laughter, in the words sprawled on the walls

In the secrets whispered in the halls

Did you hear the message, the message, did you hear?

Under one cause we have banded

We’re in the thicket of protest against unemployment

For social liberties, for rights

We thirst for freedoms we were promised

Living in the plaza square,

we have let our labors soak into the ground our bare bodies sleep on in unison

smell the stench of determination

hopefully our hope will change them

let them see that we are here

and we will not be moved.

June 26, 2011  Spain