the rapture is already right in front of you

Tags

Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, inspiration, poem, poetry, rapture, Robert Roth, writing

Landscape #107 by Robert Roth

I’m still trying to understand why this poem moves me so much, and thought maybe you can help.

And What Good Will Your Vanity Be When The Rapture Comes

says the man with a cart of empty bottles at the corner of church
and lincoln while I stare into my phone and I say
I know oh I know while trying to find the specific
filter that will make the sun’s near-flawless descent look

the way I might describe it in a poem and the man
says the moment is already right in front of you and I
say I know but everyone I love is not here and I mean
here like on this street corner with me while I turn

the sky a darker shade of red on my phone and I mean
here like everyone I love who I can still touch and not
pass my fingers through like the wind in a dream
but I look up at the man and he is a kaleidoscope

of shadows I mean his shadows have shadows
and they are small and trailing behind him and I know
then that everyone he loves is also not here and the man doesn’t ask
but I still say hey man I’ve got nothing I’ve got nothing even though I have plenty

to go home to and the sun is still hot even in its
endless flirt with submission and the man’s palm has a small
river inside I mean he has taken my hand now and here we are
tethered and unmoving and the man says what color are you making

the sky and I say what I might say in a poem I say all surrender
ends in blood and he says what color are you making the sky and
I say something bright enough to make people wish they were here
and he squints towards the dancing shrapnel of dying

light along a rooftop and he says I love things only as they are
and I’m sure I did once too but I can’t prove it to anyone these days
and he says the end isn’t always about what dies and I know I know
or I knew once and now I write about beautiful things

like I will never touch a beautiful thing again and the man
looks me in the eyes and he points to the blue-orange vault
over heaven’s gates and he says the face of everyone you miss
is up there and I know I know I can’t see them but I know

and he turns my face to the horizon and he says
we don’t have much time left and I get that he means the time
before the sun is finally through with its daily work or I
think I get that but I still can’t stop trembling and I close

my eyes and I am sobbing on the corner of church and
lincoln and when I open my eyes the sun is plucking everyone
who has chosen to love me from the clouds and carrying them
into the light-drunk horizon and I am seeing this and I know

I am seeing this the girl who kissed me as a boy in the dairy aisle
of meijer while our parents shopped and the older boy on the
basketball team who taught me how to make a good fist and swing
it into the jaw of a bully and the friends who crawled to my porch

in the summer of any year I have been alive they were all there
I saw their faces and it was like I was given the eyes of a newborn
again and once you know what it is to be lonely it is hard to
unsee that which serves as a reminder that you were not always

empty and I am gasping into the now-dark air and I pull my shirt
up to wipe whatever tears are left and I see the man walking in the
other direction and I chase him down and tap his arm and I say did
you see it did you see it like I did and he turns and leans into the

glow of a streetlamp and he is anchored by a single shadow now
and he sneers and he says have we met and he scoffs and pushes
his cart off into the night and I can hear the glass rattling even
as I watch him become small and vanish and I look down at my

phone and the sky on the screen is still blood red.

Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, Brooklyn Magazine, November 14, 2016.

It starts out as just an ordinary encounter on a street corner and kaleidoscopes into something quite different. The narrator is preoccupied with his phone, with enhancing an image of a sunset to show off to others. When approached by a homeless man preoccupied with the coming rapture, he fakes empathy, saying “I know I know”, but not really knowing, not really caring. He continues to humor the man by saying, in essence, yes, I know, the rapture is coming, but since all my people aren’t here, I’m not really ready for it right now.

And it’s at this point the poem shifts from the real to the surreal, the homeless guy before him kaleidoscopes into something else, and takes hold of the narrator’s hand. Now they are “tethered and unmoving.”

From here until the end is a dreamlike episode, where poignant moments and phrases seem to flow, one after the other, like that river flowing from the man’s palm: the sun’s “endless flirt with submission,” “I love things only as they are,” “the end isn’t always about what dies,” “now I write about beautiful things like I will never touch a beautiful thing again,” and “the face of everyone you miss is up there.”

By now the narrator is trembling and sobbing. He keeps saying “I know, I know, or I knew once,” as if he’s forgotten the things he should know. And then comes this vision: “when I open my eyes the sun is plucking everyone
who has chosen to love me from the clouds and carrying them into the light-drunk horizon and I am seeing this and I know”. He sees all these faces and precious moments from his past and says: ” it was like I was given the eyes of a newborn again.” Then he adds “once you know what it is to be lonely it is hard to unsee that which serves as a reminder that you were not always empty.”

After this vision and revelation, the scene devolves back into an ordinary street scene. The homeless man, when asked, apparently has not seen what he saw. He scornfully pushes the narrator away, and continues his journey into the night with his cart full of empty bottles.

I’m still struggling to put into words what moves me, but it’s in the images I’ve highlighted above, and the refrain “I know I know or I knew once.” It’s in that feeling that things aren’t really as they seem to be, they are so much more; and also in the fact that all we really want or need is already right here before us, if only we had eyes to see.

It’s in that coalescing of the real and surreal, the now and forever, the ordinary and extraordinary, and how they morph back and forth, dreamlike and elusive. It’s in that eternal yearning for “something more,” and, at the same time, the need to surrender to what is. To let that “dancing shrapnel” of light break us apart so we are open to this moment, right here, before us.

There’s so much more to say about this poem, and I’d be really interested in knowing what you think.

The constant reference to a poem is interesting too, making this a kind of meta-poem. The narrator himself is a poet it seems. And I wonder, does the act of writing (my writing this post, his writing that poem) does it take us out of the moment or deeper into it? And when I say “moment” do I mean what is happening right now in this room and outside my window as I write, or what is going on in my head and heart as I write quite unaware of my surroundings? Are they the same moment? Or are each part of a kaleidoscopic now, moments within moments?

The word “rapture” is mentioned only once, but referred to again and again, and perhaps the title of this post, “the rapture is already right in front of us,” comes closest to capturing what I take away from reading this poem. The rapture not referring to the Biblical sense of people being plucked off the streets into heaven, but to the ecstatic joy that lies just out of sight within the present moment, if only we have eyes to see.

Many thanks to The Vale of Soul-Making for introducing me to this poem and poet. And many thanks for the painting by Robert Roth that captures without words what I really wanted to say here.

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Hilma af Klint: A Spiritual Perspective

Tags

abstract art, art, artist, Hilma af Klint, inspiration, spirituality

The Ten Largest, No. 7 “Adult” Hilma af Klint (1907)

The abstract artwork of Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) predated that of Kandinsky, Klee, and Mondrian, and so some say that she rather than a “he” was the inventor of abstract art. She knew herself that she was painting well before her time and asked that her work not be exhibited until 20 years past her death. However, that stretch of restraint lasted much longer. Only recently is her work being given the kind of renown and interest she has long deserved.

Like so many artists, her artwork was inspired by a spiritual perspective, in her case a keen interest in Buddhism and Theosophy, and the Occult. What I love about her paintings are the rich colors and elegant organic shapes, the playful designs and sense of connectivity. Her art reminds me of Georgia O’Keefe’s works in some ways, the boldly feminine and evocative.

More about her life and work can be found in the links below.

The Ten Largest, “Childhood” Hilma af Klint (1907)

The Ten Largest, No. 4 “Youth” Hilma af Klint, (1907)

The Ten Largest, Number 6, Ten, “Adulthood”, by Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint “Evolution, №15, Group IV, The Seven-pointed Stars”, 1908

One of several “Altarpiece” paintings meant to be shown in a temple that was never built. Hilma af Klint (1915)

“The Ten Largest” (1907) at the Museum of Modern Art Stockholm, 2013 Photograph: Åsa Lundén

For more on af Klint: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-04-16/beyond-visible-hilma-af-klint ; https://medium.com/nightingale/hilma-af-klint-visualizing-the-spirit-world-bb54781d9beb ; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/arts/design/hilma-af-klint-review-guggenheim.htm l; https://www.hilmaafklint.se/om-hilma-af-klint/

A Trip Through Time and Space with Pauline Anna Strom

Tags

ambient music, Electronic music, meditation, music, New Age Music, Pauline Anna Strom, spirituality, Trans Millenia Consort

(Photo credit, Aubrey Trinnaman)

She calls herself a “musical consort to time.” She once wrote: “I endeavor, through music, to delve into all time spaces to tap resources of knowledge and power as ancient as the Universe and as young as unborn worlds.”

After listening to her music, I’m convinced this is true.

I’ve never been a huge fan of ambient or electronic music, but I discovered Strom’s on Sunday while drinking my morning coffee in bed, as I always do, and skimming through the day’s headlines on my cell phone. I came across an article about her in the Washington Post. Her first new music album in 30 years, “Angel Tears in Sunlight,” has just been released to much acclaim. It is also her last album, as she died recently in San Francisco.

She was born blind 74 years ago and became a pioneer in electronic music. Her her first album, “Trans-Millenia Consort,” which I’ve included below, was released in 1982. But alas, she was blind, she was a woman, she was fiercely independent, and she was playing in a man’s field of music.

After the release of her first album, she released her work independently out of pure passion. While not widely recognized, she had a fan base that kept her music alive underground. Appreciation for her music was reignited when a compilation of pieces from her previously self-released albums came out in a new album called “Trans Millenia Music” in 2017, garnering much praise and a new enthusiastic audience.

One of the things I enjoyed most about listening to her music that morning on my phone was being able to feel the sound-vibrations in my finger tips. It added a whole new physical dimension to the experience. Interestingly, while listening to it, my fitness tracker registered it as a “deep sleep” experience. Perhaps because of how finely tuned-in I was to the sound waves flowing through me, as if I was travelling with her through time in my own inner-space. A fine consort she is.

I hope you enjoy the journey.

Will Salmon Swim Upstream Through City Streets?

Tags

apocalypse, art, climate change, culture, Deborah J. Brasket, future, humanity, Nature, poem, poetry, Survival, Trumpism, United States

Once Upon a Time, A Poem

In an eon, will Trumpism portend another Troy, a Trojan horse whose armies eviscerated a City of light?

Will we be the stuff of legends, our tropes and memes edging pages of ancient texts on crumbling shelves?

Will waves gently lap against the skirts of Liberty and docile doves nestle in her hair?

Will salmon swim upstream through city streets, and coral reefs grow in our gardens?

Will the long roots of forests thrum with our stories etched in rings around their trunks?

Will the mocking bird remember our voices? Or the songbirds our songs?

Will crickets by moonlight rub their feet together filling the night with memories of our violins?

Will tiny children perched in trees suckle strange fruit, while the bent backs of their elders forage below?

Will the skies with bows of beauty still bend round us? Will the stars cast spears of light upon our heads?

Will the Eagle with its soaring eye see us? Will we see it? And remember how

The long, slow, widening arcs of its wings drew round us, once up a time, so long ago.

Deborah J. Brasket, 2021

Illustration by Jessie Wilcox Smith from the fairy tale Water Babies by Charles Kingsley, 1862

A Young Poet and Rapper Throw Light on the State of Our Union

Tags

2020 presidential election, 2021 Inauguration, Amanda Gorman, Marlon Craft, music, poetry, Political, Politics, rap music, state of the union

Dos Cabezas by Klee Paul, 1932

“A Return to Joy!” That’s what I was going to blog about today after watching the horror of the January 6th insurrection, and then savoring every minute of the Biden/Harris Inauguration celebrations on January 20. But it’s not that simple, is it? So much work is yet to do to create the lasting joy we need. And back to normal simply isn’t enough.

One the highlights of that day for me and so many others was Amanda Gorman’s recital of her poem “The Hill We Climb,” which went viral. It was a soulful and soaring oration that inspire so many of us with hope for the future, a new generation.

She starts out by asking “where can we find light in this never-ending shade?” and reminding us of “the loss we carry, a sea we must wade.” She reminds us that “quiet” isn’t always “peace” and the norms we accept as what “just is” isn’t always “just-ice.”

And yet she claims the “the dawn is ours,” and despite all we’ve “weathered and witnessed” what we’re left with is “a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished.”

She ends her poem on a high clear clarion call:

When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

It’s uplifting hopefulness stirred our hearts. It was the “light” we’ve been craving after four years of “darkness.” We needed to know that there are young people like Amanda who will pick up the torch and move our nation forward.

Not long after the inauguration, I watched another video gone viral, this time of the young rapper Marlon Craft reciting his song “State of the Union.” His vision of America was starker, darker, more painful to hear. He too pointed out hard truths.

How “The state of the union is that there isn’t one /If a house divided can’t stand.”

How “fake superiority created by authority” convinces the poorest “he still one caste up, cause at least you not black.”

How “to keep you off track” when “the elite eat on the backs of your labor, you point at your neighbor—instead of up.”

How we talk about “generational wealth, But outside making money for ourselves, We won’t give the next generation no help,” and “It may already be too late to save the f—ing planet.”

He asks: “How many of us really choose our own thoughts and vices?” and “Who knew algorithms would really dictate what we cheer?” and “Can you track your opinion to it’s origin?”

He notes that while “white liberals” may “acknowledge their privilege, “they aint givin’ it up.” And how “You can’t abuse populations, leave ’em destitute and vacant and then ask them to care /About anything but their next move.”

He warns:

Truth is if not for COVID, Trump would’ve won re-election in a landslide
So we evaded armageddon, for good old store brand oppression
But if a leader more savvy, and less sociopathic with true fascist aspirations come along, it’s gon’ be tragic
74 million proved if the right rhetoric is used
We could end up on the wrong side of World War II 2

And to defeat white supremacy, you gotta first want to defeat white supremacy
I don’t think most of us really do

It was always gon’ get worse ‘fore it got better
Racism was never gon’ go quietly to the night

But Marlon, like Amanda, ends on a hopeful note and brings it back to each of us:

I do believe that [racism] along with greed, can make it’s way out of our institutions so that all are free one day
I ain’t say that it will,

It depends what we do, there’s only one person the future starts and ends with
It’s you

We have to clearly delineate the problem before we can fix it, and these two young people, one black and one white, a poet and a rapper, are doing it for their own generation as well as for us.

The torch that many of us carried for so long is being handed off. And as dark as this current moment in history is with more people lost to Covid in ten months than were lost in WWII in 4 years, with our country painfully divided across party lines, with racial and economic inequity putting a strangle hold on so many families, with raging wildfires and hurricanes and a planet in peril, these two artists give me hope for the future.

They are creating the kind of art that makes all the difference: Shining a light in the darkness so we can see our way forward.

A transcript of Amanda’s poem “The Hill We Climb”

The lyrics of Marlon’s “State of the Union”

Joy Amid the Turmoil: A 2020 Recap

Tags

2020, Blogging, Covid-19, life, new year, Politics

The year 2020 may have been the most turbulent year any of us have ever known. Blogging in such a year was challenge enough. Trying to recapture that whirlwind may be beyond any of us.

But I will try. And at least it ends on a note of joy.

Looking back at my first blog post of 2020, I wrote about how challenging 2019 had been. My wish list for 2020 was the same as my 2019 list, as one year had not been enough long to bring the happy endings that I had hoped for. My wish list for 2021 would be a repeat of the last two years, except I’ve put wish lists on hold for the time being. Things are too uncertain, and the turbulent times are still with us.

For me, the turmoil of 2020 did not begin with Covid, but blew in on the tailcoat of 2019 as I wrote about in From the Tailwinds of 2019, Hope Lost & Its Glimmer.” My February post “I’m Praying for You to Die” detailed more of the trauma. But Covid only compounded the turmoil, as noted in March’s post Homeschooling Again & Who’s the Boss.

In April I wrote about The Joy and Grief and Everything in Between that came with Covid, the mixed feelings and emotional turmoil so many were feeling as we tried to survive the initial lockdowns and isolation. We did not realize then how long all this would be going on, the horrendous death toll it would bring, or the economic disaster.

In May I wrote about Poetry in the Time of Corona. It must have resonated with a lot of readers as I saw it move into my :Top Ten Posts” list and rise to number 4.

In June during all the racial strife, the police brutality and protests, I began a series of posts about my “Brushes with Blackness,” how Black lives and Black culture colored my whiteness, and helped shape my sense of justice, fair play, and compassion for others.

In August I wrote the unsettling and surreal world in which we all were living in Still Waiting to Land . . . . I wrote: “Clearly we live in interesting times. A curse? Possibly. A cleansing? Hopefully. No wonder we feel as if the rug has been pulled out from under our feet. And we haven’t quite landed yet.” I still feel that way.

I followed that with Wildfires Everywhere, Politically and Literally about watching wildfires gobble up California and cast an eerie and ominous red glow over the land, even while the Democratic National Convention was providing a glimmer of hope midst all the devastation.

In September I wrote Grieving for America, and Getting Past It, and then my favorite, just after the election, Truth and Love Wins, and I Can Breathe Again.

Unfortunately the political turmoil did not end with Biden’s victory as hoped, and perhaps even has gotten worse, which seems unimaginable. Yet, for me personally, 2020 has still ended on one ecstatic note.

At the beginning of this year I wrote: “The one gift 2019 gave me (which is huge and fills my heart!) is hope for my granddaughter when she came to live with me. Hope that she will remain in my care, happy and safe, healthy and strong, responsibly cared for and dearly cherished as she grows into a young woman.”

That gift kept growing in 2020. Everything I had hoped and planned for concerning my granddaughter’s welfare came true, as I wrote about in My Arms Are Empty, but My Heart is Full. She is happy and well and living the life of her dreams with her aunt and uncle: surfing, hiking, biking, movie nights snuggling on the couch, reading the Harry Potter series together before bed, laughing with her new best friends at school, and telling me all about her fun-filled days on our weekly video-chats. She was asked recently what the best thing about 2020 was. She answered, “Moving here. Else I wouldn’t have this life I love.”

So for all the turmoil of 2020, and whatever upheaval 2021 might bring, I can comfort myself with that huge gift of joy.

Solace in Solitude, Agnes Martin, “Mystic Minimalist”

Tags

abstract art, Agnes Martin, art, minimalist art, Paintings, spirituality, the creative process

“Falling Blue” by Agnes Martin, 1963

For those seeking solace in solitude during these turbulent times and covid isolation, I offer these minimalist paintings for comfort and contemplation.

“My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.” -Agnes Martin

To truly see and appreciate Martin’s paintings, which are quite large, you might want to click on the images and zoom in to discover how intricately they are designed and woven, how subtle the entwining colors, like the woof and warp of carefully crafted fabric. To see how the order and calmness of the design pulls you in and stills the mind.

“Night Sea” (1963) by Agnes Martin. Oil, crayon and gold leaf on linen

When I try to imagine the crafting of such paintings, the meticulous grids, the fine, faintly undulating hand-drawn lines, the cool, retiring colors, the tedious and calming task of such minute work on such a grand scale, I am awed with wonder and delight. What it must have felt like in the moment, the mindstate one would have to have to create such a thing! The be that. To be there. To be. How marvelous.

“Friendship” by Agnes Martin, gold leaf and gesso on canvas

It reminds me of the huge difference between mind-calming and mind-numbing activities. Huge difference between no-thought meditation and blankness of mind. Subtle rivers of movement and color run through it, stir and dissolve, full and empty, bouyant, light, deeply comforting. An all-embracing, silently singing, hug.

The noted art critic Hilton Kramer once said Martin’s work was “like a religious utterance, almost a form of prayer.”

A few more paintings follow, as well as quotes from articles about Martin, her life, her works, and her philosophy.

“Flower in the Wind” by Agnes Martin, 1963

“Martin, who died in 2004 in Taos, N.M., at age 92, was interested in sensations like the inexplicable happiness you might feel when you wake up in the morning — that fleeting feeling, sunlight tiptoeing on your eyelids as you break the surface of consciousness, when you’re aware only of being aware.” —Kelsey Ables, Painter Agnes Martin’s Works Provide Quiet in a Noisy World, Washington Post

Agnes Martin

“Agnes Martin’s world is one of order and tranquility, as minutely patterned grids and ruler straight bands expand across vast surfaces suggesting wide open space. Yet there is also sensitive musicality at play as lines tremble and colour relationships become vibrating rhythm, tapping into the profound realms of human spirituality.” —Rosie Lesso, Agnes Martin: Mystic Minimalist

“The Wood, I” Agnes Martin

“According to Agnes Martin, both paintings and contact with nature can prompt a greater awareness of what she calls perfection. Her essential view of the world is of daily life superimposed on top of an underlying perfection. Both paintings and nature, she believes, provide opportunities for a glimpse into another way of being in the world. The work of art links the daily to the sublime; or, in Martin’s terms, by engaging and moving the viewer, art can reveal the basic perfection. According to Martin, perfection is almost like a map, if we pay attention. Once we have received a glimpse of perfection, she believes, we can seek it on our own, and the reaction to perfection is joy.” –Joanna Webber, The Image Journal

“Stars” by Agnes Martin

 “Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into it. I want to draw a certain response like this … that quality of response from people when they leave themselves behind, often experienced in nature, an experience of simple joy… My paintings are about merging, about formlessness … A world without objects, without interruption.” –Agnes Martin

 “Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not just in the eye. It is in the mind. It is our positive response to life.”  –Agnes Martin

“The Islands” by Agnes Martin, acrylic and graphite on canvas

“[Martin’ adopted a palette of muted shades of brown, beige, gray and white, sometimes warmed by soft washes of pink, orange or blue. The colors and titles, such as “Mountains,” “Dark River,” “Starlight” and “Leaf in the Wind,” suggested the landscape and skies of her adopted New Mexico. They were not realistic depictions but rather subtle evocations of the sensations and emotional weight of the natural world.” —Matt Shudal, Influential Abstract Painter Agnes Martin Dies at 92, Washington Post

Agnes Martin in her studio in Taos, New Mexico in 1953.

“Artwork is a representation of our devotion to life.” –Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin, 2019

The Gift of Consession

Tags

2016 Presidential Election, 2020 presidential election, an alternate reality, Concession speech, democracy, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Politics, USA

“Donald Trump is going to be our president. We must accept this result and then look to the future. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”

This is what Hillary Clinton said in her concession speech in 2016 when half the nation was in deep mourning. Many were convinced that the election had been “stolen”: by Trump’s call-out to Putin and the following Russian disinformation campaign, by Wiki-Leaks hacking of Democratic servers, by Comey’s disgraceful announcement of yet another fruitless investigation only days before the election, by the media’s constant hounding on the now debunked email scandal, by the razor-thin margin of votes that cracked the Blue Wall, by the fact that three million more people voted for Clinton than Trump.

As an avid supporter of Clinton, it was not easy to let go and move on, as I wrote about four years ago in Waking Up in an Alternate Reality. It still seems we are living in that alternate universe where half the country believes that Trump won instead of Biden.  But Clinton’s concession speech, so full of grace and dignity, was a shining example of how to do so. It helped me immensely. She went on to say:

“Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.”

“This is painful, and it will be for a long time, but I want you to remember this: Our campaign was never about one person, or even one election. It was about the country we love.”

I wish President Trump could give this gift of concession to his supporters, a speech that would help them to move on to fight another day. And encourage them to give the next President an open mind and chance to lead. That’s what true leaders do. They put their country and their supporters first. But Trump’s presidency was never about this nation. It was about one man, Trump, who he will always put first.

These lawsuits will not change the outcome of the election. But in the meantime, chaos still reigns supreme under this administration. January 20th can not come fast enough.

Truth and Love Wins, and I Can Breathe Again!

Tags

America is Back, Biden wins, celebration, Love, Politics, Presidential Election 2020, truth, Truth and Love wins, USA

I feel like I’ve been ship-wrecked at sea for the past four years and finally have reached the shore.

I want to kiss the ground.

And then get up and dance.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, America!!!

Voting for the Soul of America

Tags

America, Donald Trump, Election Day 2020, Joe Biden, Vote 2020

Today’s the day. If you haven’t voted yet, please do!

 

Vote for Love over hate,

Truth over lies,

Unity over division,

Peace over chaos,

Integrity over corruption,

Honesty over deceit,

Kindness over bullying,

Social Justice over racism,

Science over fiction,

Humility over vanity,

Service over selfishness,

Decency over boorishness,

The Common Good over self-interest,

Principle over expediency,

Democracy over tyranny,

America over Trumpism.

 

VOTE BIDEN.