A Liturgy for the Burdened

A poetic lament for the exploited, forgotten, and overburdened, while also serving as a call toward conscience, solidarity, and resistance against systems sustained through fear and inequality.

The iron wheels keep turning still,

they grind both bone and bread,

while gilded men in marble halls

grow fat where children bled...

and every coin their fingers clutch,

each gleaming throne they claim,

was forged from nameless, broken backs

and sealed in human pain.

Yet still the weary masses bow,

their spirits taught to yield,

while truth lies bleeding in the dust

of every ravaged field;

for fear has always been the chain

wrapped tightly round the poor,

and silence built the towering walls

that guard oppression’s door.

But hear the city’s endless roar,

beneath the market’s cry,

there stirs within forgotten hearts

a fire that will not die…

a pulse beneath the pavement stones,

a thunder drawing near,

the sound of long-submitted souls

outgrowing ancient fear.

Arise, ye battered multitudes,

ye burdened and betrayed,

ye builders of another’s wealth

who perish in its shade...

arise before your children learn

to kiss the hand that drains,

before the last of human warmth

is strangled out by chains.

For they divide you expertly

through color, creed, and tongue,

lest those brought low by suffering

remember they are one;

they feed you fear, they feed you rage,

they turn your eyes aside,

while avarice sits crowned in gold

and feeds upon your lives.

And everywhere the hollow men

speak grandly of the free,

while forging vast cathedrals

to control and tyranny;

they cloak their theft in banners,

they sanctify their greed,

then brand the broken dangerous

for naming what they see.

But no empire fed by suffering

escapes the hand of time,

and no amount of polished lies

can make corruption divine;

for every tower built on pain,

however high it climbs,

already bears within its stones

the fractures of decline.

So let your conscience be the drum

that echoes through the night,

and let your voice become the storm

that tears apart the lie;

for tyrants never fear the dead,

nor those who crawl in dread,

they fear the soul that breaks the yoke,

no longer bowed or led.

Though weariness may grip your bones,

though sorrow clouds your gaze,

far better still to rise and bleed

than rot in shackled days;

for somewhere underneath the ash,

beneath despair and scars,

the dignity they sought to crush

still burns within your heart.

Thus rise, ye weary multitudes,

let apathy now cease,

for justice isn't granted

by the powerful in peace;

it lives wherever common souls

refuse to crawl or hide…

so rise before the chains grow tight,

and kindle dawn against the night.

Camille Rose Castillo