Courage

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Courage | Text of the Poem

It is in the small things we see it.
The child’s first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.     5
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you a crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,     10
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,     15
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was...

[The entire page is 284 words long]

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