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Let Seattle be

                Seattle, the place that was, and is, and will be

                Seattle has become a home for me

                among the shackled and the free


The place where trees once stood

                before there was a neighborhood

                Seattle was the Cedar’s majesty

                before the planes and glass spines scraped the sky

                she was the mother in her children's eyes

                before the hills were pushed into the sand

this was and is and will be the Duwamish land

Let Seattle be

                Seattle, a chief's name on foreign tongues

                Seattle recognized and sung, by dolphins we call Killer Whales

                before they too are gone — a sanctuary City, in a filled in estuary



Let Seattle be hope, in this hope broken land

                a shelter and a refuge, a fist to stop a tyrant’s hand

                Seattle, your tectonic faults are great



See the last one leaving turn out the lights

See the home of War and the flight

See the Gold Rush and sourdough bread

See the Issei and the Nisei of the Panama Hotel, 7,000 gone by what the president said

See how Hooverville returns again and again

See old covenants of outside the International District and CD

See where no Asians and no Africans could be, how more than others we still live

                                                                                                                                                         without the trees


Oh gray blanket on the streets and in the sky

See the tents, the sweeps and totem poles



Seattle, remember too the change you are and want to be

 Listen to The Gang of Four

 understand their Unity

 Listen to The Gang of Four

 notice what remains


When the soil of ourselves is pushed into the sand

What rises from the grains is in the People's hands

See Bob Santos in the International District
See Bernie Whitebear occupy the Daybreak Star

See Larry Gossett CAMP to feed the people (no matter what the name)

See Roberto Maestra and El Centro De La Raza                rising still again



Say, who are you in the Salish Sea?

                Pushed aside for prosperity

I am the Black River gone as the people cried

I am the Chinook dead on the side

I am the Orca carrying my child

I'm the gray whale beached at Alki

I am your neighbor

                                without shelter in the sand


Oh, but Seattle is mighty even with its broken dreams

Oh, Seattle is mighty when it looks in its own eyes

What city do you know that fights itself to undo its present harms

What city do you know that sounds its own alarms?

What city do you know that was raised by colonizers

that turns itself upon itself to put out ancient fires?




This place, of wooded paths and parks

                                                                             that must belong to all

This place, where we drink the water from protected Cedar Falls

This place, where race and social justice is built into the law

This place, where you are taught to understand the power of it all

The power of illusion that there are racial lines

The power of Illusion that's kept us all behind

                                But the strength of our ethnicity is celebrated here


So



Sing what's right Seattle

                over the heartless song

Sing the estuary where freshwater meets the sea

                where Orcas must survive for our health and their dignity

Sing My Posse's on Broadway

Sing jazz on Jackson Street in wires

Sing Jimi Hendrix, what stars is in his Spangled Banner demand

Sing WTO, Black Panthers and the Women's March

Sing and Endangered song, Sing a whale's song, Sing

Sing Quincy Jones

Sing Ernestine Anderson

Sing Grunge and Hip Hop



Speak tablets from the sky

Speak Octavia Butler and her brood in a futuristic mood

Speak Gabriel and Riz

Speak August Wilson, play out all the cycles

Speak Colleen McElroy with Madagascar lips




Dance/color into the dark canvas of Winter

Dance Chihuly in two steps

Dance Jacob Lawrence and Debora Moore 

Dance Dingus and Barbara Earle

Dance Kabby and Syvilla Fort



Feast on Forest of food from Beacon Hill

Become an Amazon for equity

with the sweet steamy foam of justice in our mouths — Come, All

Stand in the crossroads of the red, black & green

Stand in the rainbow of what has been

Celebrate this Emerald City and its Green New Deal

make a way for the poor and impoverished to heal

SING WHAT’s RIGHT SEATTLE

Let Seattle be

                Seattle, the place that was and is and will be

Seattle has become a home for me

                among the shackled and the free

                amidst the resistance there must be

                as the hills were pushed into the sand

Seattle will bring

                must bring

                                      Justice to our land

Jourdan Imani Keith, Seattle's Civic Poet, is our Poet in Residence for October.

"Let Seattle Be" was first read August 29th at the Mayor's Arts Awards ceremony.