—After Rebecca Solnit and Timothy Snyder
You are dancing, muscles stretching, contracting, tempting gravity to unbalance you, then sinuously collapsing, denying the ground
its prize, spinning, swirling, undulating
to a rhythm, a pulse, a beat, from deep inside
when a cardboard pretender says, STOP.
Nobody is allowed to dance.
Dancing is banned—
verboten—prohibited—
on penalty of death.
This is not legal. He has no power
to enforce his decree. But he can
make you fear. And
if everyone
stops dancing,
the outcome is the same as if he did
have the power
to make dancing
a crime.
Do not obey in advance.
Stay strong.
Stay together.
Never stop dancing.
by Gale Naylor
Rebecca Solnit, “Shocking But Surprising Strikes Again (and Again),” 3/5/2025, https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/if-we-must-be-peasants-lets-be-the-peasants-are-revolting-2
Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Crown Publishing Group, 2017.
Poetry by Gale 