May Day

The periodic cheers rising from a cluster of people gathered on the Common finally draws Doc Bubbles out of her chilly office. She is fortunate to arrive just as poet Martin Espada begins reading his poem "Alabanza." He is a powerful reader, his voice riding the rhythmic swells, emerging from his own rolling deeps, the crowd joining in on the refrain "Alabanza" (bless them, the workers killed in the World Trade Center) and drums beat time as well. Even the hard-hearted Doc Bubbles feels moved, as she strolls through the crowd, with its signs, in various languages, proclaiming that a person cannot be illegal, a point with which it would, admittedly, be hard to disagree. Surely this chanting, this mustering of emotions, is the true descendent of Ginsberg's Howl. Surely this is poetry that can make something happen... if any poetry can, if anything can happen....

A familiar face in the crowd speaks to her, smiling, saying what a great turn out. Ever optimistic, working on every cause, serving on the select board, this individual is truly admirable. Doc Bubbles had been, after all, thinking it was a rather paltry crowd, a pitiful turnout for a town like Pixieville. She can remember when she was young, in the days of the protests against Nixon, against the Vietnam War, how it seemed like the bodies out there on the fields were hugely significant, changing the very structure of reality, sending reverberations of love and peace that shook even the White House. Apparently, those protests did have some actual, not just cosmic, effect, so why does Doc Bubbles tend to relegate those perceptions to the realm of childhood, of stoner fantasy? Why can she do nothing but shake her head at those who place their bodies in town squares now, and think, you innocents, aren't you cute, but, can you really believe any of this matters?