SAY YES

Say Yes

when two violins are placed in a room


if a chord on one violin is struck


the other violin will sound the note


if this is your definition of hope


this is for you


the ones who know how powerful we are


who know we can sound the music in the people around us


simply by playing our own strings


for the ones who sing life into broken wings


open their chests and offer their breath


as wind on a still day when nothing seems to be moving


spare those intent on proving god is dead


for you when your fingers are red


from clutching your heart


so it will beat faster


for the time you mastered the art of giving yourself for the sake of someone else


for the ones who have felt what it is to crush the lies


and lift truth so high the steeples bow to the sky


this is for you


this is also for the people who wake early to watch flowers bloom


who notice the moon at noon on a day when the world


has slapped them in the face with its lack of light


for the mothers who feed their children first


and thirst for nothing when they're full

this is for women


and for the men who taught me only women bleed with the moon


but there are men who cry when women bleed


men who bleed from women's wounds


and this is for that moon


on the nights she seems hung by a noose


for the people who cut her loose


and for the people still waiting for the rope to burn

about to learn they have scissors in their hands

this is for the man who showed me


the hardest thing about having nothing


is having nothing to give


who said the only reason to live is to give ourselves away


so this is for the day we'll quit our jobs and work for something real


we'll feel for sunshine in the shadows

look for sunrays in the shade


this is for the people who rattle the cage that slave wage built


and for the ones who didn't know the filth until tonight


but right now are beginning songs that sound something like

people turning their porch lights on and calling the homeless back home

this is for all the shit we own


and for the day we'll learn how much we have


when we learn to give that shit away


this is for doubt becoming faith


for falling from grace and climbing back up


for trading our silver platters for something that matters

like the gold that shines from our hands when we hold each other

this is for the grandmother who walked a thousand miles on broken glass

to find that single patch of grass to plant a family tree


where the fruit would grow to laugh


for the ones who know the math of war


has always been subtraction


so they live like an action of addition


for you when you give like every star is wishing on you


and for the people still wishing on stars


this is for you too

this is for the times you went through hell so someone else wouldn't have to


for the time you taught a 14 year old girl she was powerful


this is for the time you taught a 14 year old boy he was beautiful


for the radical anarchist asking a republican to dance


cause what's the chance of everyone moving from right to left


if the only moves they see are NBC and CBS

this is for the no becoming yes


for scars becoming breath


for saying i love you to people who will never say it to us


for scraping away the rust and remembering how to shine


for the dime you gave away when you didn't have a penny


for the many beautiful things we do


for every song we've ever sung


for refusing to believe in miracles


because miracles are the impossible coming true

and everything is possible

this is for the possibility that guides us


and for the possibilities still waiting to sing


and spread their wings inside us


cause tonight saturn is on his knees


proposing with all of his ten thousand rings


that whatever song we've been singing we sing even more

the world needs us right now more than it ever has before


pull all your strings


play every chord


if you're writing letters to the prisoners


start tearing down the bars


if you're handing our flashlights in the dark


start handing out stars


never go a second hushing the percussion of your heart


play loud


play like you know the clouds have left too many people cold and broken


and you're their last chance for sun


play like there's no time for hoping brighter days will come


play like the apocalypse is only 4...3...2


but you have a drum in your chest that could save us


you have a song like a breath that could raise us

like the sunrise into a dark sky that cries to be blue

play like you know we won't survive if you don't

but we will if you do

play like saturn is on his knees

proposing with all of his ten thousand rings

that we give every single breath

this is for saying-yes

this is for saying-yes