Turmoil
Sophia:
And these white breast are withered you say
But their whiteness still is rich enough for milk
To nurse you back to common sense and pity
For you are so hardened by the custom of today.
Leroy:
I am sorry that I called you old, it meant nothing
Except to say we must advance with time
And then against it, or we too will cough and die
Like father did, bleeding his lungs out in the mines.
What shall become of us if I continue where he end?
Sophia:
He died because he had to die, we all die and still
We never chose how to die, for that would be a love of death
So death comes and we suffer in the lingering
It was not the mines, son, it was the time for him
Leroy
The time for him! Was his life, my life, our life
All life a joke, a caprice thrown out among the stars
My God I cannot accept this, a man must have some worth
And if not in our stars then in our labor ... we build
A world from these hands alone, and still do not belong
O mother, I shall march, we will march ... let the glory
Come tomorrow ... the tea party is for today!
Sophia
And what shall become of me, your children, your wife?
Do you think men are different because of philosphy
Because we label them? Tenement Square, Iran
Men are ever men, the look of conflict is the smell of blood
And will Authority retreat because your cause is good?
Dogs are not trained to sleep, and fire houses
Not for distant wars, tyranny is the power to do
O that my withered breast could sleep and nothing rue
Leroy
It is not your breast, mother, it is the time
Only from the streets will the leaders listen.
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