Woke /wohk/
(adjective.)

The moment a person stands upright
in the full measure of their seeing.
As in what Pope Leo said:
To be called woke in a world that sleeps
through suffering
is no insult.

Or,
the strange condition
in which noticing the world
is treated as more dangerous
than anything happening in it.
As in what an American president said:
You know what woke means?
It means you’re a loser.
Everything woke turns to shit.

Or,
the moment
we stop pretending
we don’t see
what we have always seen.
As in what Janelle Monae said:
We come in peace,
but we mean business.
Stay woke.

Or,
to recognize
the machinery of suffering
and to understand,
with a terrible intimacy,
our place inside it.
As in what Colin Kaepernick said:
Being woke means refusing
to ignore the suffering of others.
Even when it’s easier to look away.

Or,
the knowledge
that the truth will set you free,
but first, it will demand
that you stop lying
to yourself.
As in what Michelle Obama said:
To be woke means to see the world for what it is,
not what for what you want it to be.

Or,
a crime of awareness:
born of discomfort,
when it is easier to curse
the light
than to admit
we were more comfortable
in the dark.
As in what the Golden
Globes crowd shouted
at Viola Davis:
We don’t want your wokeness here.

Or,
the lesson taught by those
who profit from our division:
that outrage is a virtue
and empathy a weakness –
because a nation turned against itself
has no strength left
to hold the powerful to account,
only each other.
But the truth is simpler,
and far less convenient.
As in what Jane Fonda said:
Make no mistake,
empathy is not weak or woke.
And by the way,
woke just means giving a damn
about other people.

Or,
to know what is happening,
to know why it is happening,
and to understand
that our silence is not neutral.
As in what Angela Davis said:
The woke generation is not afraid
to question systems
that no longer serve humanity.

Or,
the moment we understand
that the past
is not past at all –
that no dictionary definition is required
for basic human decency,
only the knowledge
that vigilance remains
the price of being alive.
As in what Lead Belly said
to black people in the 30s:
Stay woke, keep your eyes open.

Or,
the soul stretching awake
after a long nap,
blinking at the brightness,
muttering
oh no…
oh yes –
here we stand.
At the threshold,
between a slur and a spark,
between cancelled and claimed.
As in how I marveled as I wrote:
that a tiny word like woke,
born to name the state of being awake,
has been bent and twisted
into a command
meant to send us back to sleep.