knowing where I am (occupy poem from the office of dues-paying radical jews)

for the rest of the meeting, I look down at my paper.

once I've said that I can't step up. that I'm already full.

full with what? full of what?

this movement is elusive or is it just ineffective.

to sit at this meeting where there's a plan to hatch. a campaign, and steps.

and say I don't have time because I am exploring, idealistically

with hundreds of others but without this clarity, these resources, this common ground.

I wish Marjorie would want to reach out to be my mentor.

She says she has three things to say to me, but they must not be that urgent,

because she doesn't make the time to say them. I know it's late.

There is some critique crystallizing, slowly,

you know, about organizing around identity politics?

about "you understand, of course, how important it is to have organizational structures

that pay dues"

and it is.

I am quibbling back at the slow sliding weight of that bigger critique

served out as us.

and the decision I've already made

to say me and feel us

to hear us and think me

I think that I am making good choices, but I know I don't know

as much as you.

there's a place for me, here- and for you, where I go.

the things the world could not do if there wasn't youth, if there wasn't ignorance, if there wasn't naivete.