the victims will not be there to judge

they won’t judge the lives we’ll lead/ not the memorials/ not the protests/ they won’t judge the history told in their honor/ the mourning of their loss/ the fights we fight like hell/ the boycotts/  

they won’t judge who crossed the picket lines/ the people coming together/ the politicians who enable their death/ the platitudes of world leaders/ they won’t judge allies or enemies/  

they won’t hear the songs we sing after/ the poems we recite/ the stories we write/ they won’t judge the lies printed in the media/ who falls for those lies/ who knows better/  

they won’t judge life without them/ they won’t judge how much we miss them/ how we preserve their memory/ what is rebuilt from the rubble/ the schools we bring back/ the hospitals we bring back/ their culture survive/ they won’t know the freedom we won for them/ the pain we feel from their absence/  

they won’t judge us from what we do when the fighting stops/ they won’t judge who survives/ who doesn’t/  

they won’t judge who gets to reach the river or the sea/  

they won’t see their children grow/ the children free from oppression/ the walls and fences toppled forever/ the sun rising on their homeland/ they won’t see themselves become seeds in the soil/ the flowers growing in their place/  

we’ll see it for them/ we’ll play the drums of liberation/ witness the freedom won from the ashes/ the fall of empires/ we’ll see their children grow/ laughing and playing/ we’ll see them smile for the rest of their lives/  

the victims won’t see the children play by the sea/ they will be the trees from the aftermath/ providing shade and shelter/ for the generations to come/ in the safety of their homeland/ theirs once again/ now and forever/ from the river to the sea/