A Holy Riot in Gold

January 2026  

For the watchers, the dancers, the dead who rise

I used to run to burn away rage

But I learned to run faster, skipping...

Higher, higher, higher  

Till the sky laughs with me.

The oppressor is under my shoe.  

I don't trample my rage; I laugh with her.  

Where my soft body might stumble,

She spreads her wings.

I am laughing with the sky now, too.

The scream came before the storm.

I did not speak it.

But my bones knew.

The veil bent low, whispered:

“Watch.”

Birds of war tilt their heads—

Not the falcons,

But the crows who tend the dead.

The veil thinned, whispered:

“Watch.”

The world splits open,

my heart a vertex.

This morning, I screamed backwards in time.

I ran till I came to a graveyard.

I smell earth and the arrival of snow.

I fell to my knees in a field of tombstones

And found the holy kneeling with me.

I heard myself

Speaking with the dead  

(They listen.)

I smell spring flowers and pipe tobacco

In the January wind.

“Do you know what they’ve made of this country, Grandfather?”

I’m glad he cannot see this.

And then,

I heard the holy whispering, too—

My hands on the earth—

“Do you know what they have done, beloved?”

“I know.”

The holy reaches back,

Fingers threaded through mine,

To hold the ache.

“Do you know what they have done, beloved?

They shot him ten times.”

“Because he looked like a resurrection.

He didn’t kneel to them.

He knelt beside the wounded.

And they couldn’t bear

The comparison.”

“That was threat enough to the state.”

—

The watchers are not armed.

They are awake.

And that is the weapon empire fears most.”

—

They thought we’d lie down beside the dead.

But we danced instead.  

And every ancestor

Rises to join us.

—

This joy is not peacekeeping.

This joy is a holy riot in gold.

—

The dead do not stay dead.

They scatter marigold petals

On ICE uniforms

And skip into the courthouse, laughing.

I will not trample the oppressor in rage.

Holy, raging joy rolls in on a wave.

Joy spreads her wings.

Like Mary, I am treading where I please,

I will skip over them, laughing.

Because the kin-dom is already beautiful.

Because there are already more of us.

Because the chains are already broken.

The dead are dancing—

Say the name Renee Good.

The dead are dancing—

Say the name Alex Pretti.

The dead are dancing.

Our revolution is not violence

But one of unstoppable joy dancing.

Death is laughing at this empire.

Flowers rise from the grave.

This is not a poem written for the march of martyrdom.

This is testimony:

that holy, raging joy is rising in waves.

We have already won.

Spread your wings.

“Let there be light—

The lightness of hearts lifted

When one hand holds another.

The Holy One holds mine.

I stretch to you.

Be with me, beloved.”

Spread your wings,

Be blessed with raging joy.

Let this blessing move through you.

Blessed are the watchers,

for they walk unarmed and rise anyway.  

Blessed are the screamers,

for they heard it first.  

Blessed are the ones who skip

when death wants stillness.  

Blessed are the dead;

they are dancing.

Laughing from the grave.

Bless their joy with action.

We have already won.

Death is laughing at this empire,

Wild bouquet in hand,

Walking the beloveds home.

The Holy One whispers—

Go forth, watchers.

The veil is thin.

The dead are listening.

The scream already reached them.

You are not alone.

You are never alone.

The sky is laughing

As Holy Rage spreads her wings.

The dead rise singing in our footsteps.

Joy rises like morning.

Walk on, beloved — your hand in mine.