Quent Cordair Profile picture
Jul 14, 2019 6 tweets 3 min read Read on X
1/
It matters not which border crossed,
From desert dry or tempest tossed,
To waves of grain and freedom’s sigh,
From womb’s dark hold to first-light’s cry—
You’re here, you’re here, at last.
It matters not what age you came,
Eight months or eighty years the same,
What color skin your parents’ face,
What faith from which they fled to grace—
You’re here, you’re here, at last.
Now eye to eye, measuring minds,
The hopeful search for justice finds
No honest man can blindly curse
One more like he in chorus and verse
Than different—yes, in essence we
Are species same, from nose to knee—
As equals born with equal right
To live and work and dream the night
Where best we may, and here you are,
Your place of birth be near or far,
Your life and loves as dear to you
As mine to me—and this is true:
As innocent till guilty proved,
Against you none are justly moved.
So come, let’s toast to freedom’s song,
And may someday you pass along—
It matters not which border crossed,
To nurse’s hands or shoreline lost—
You’re here, you’re here, at last.

~ Quent Cordair
"At Last" is from the MY KINGDOM collection of poems, short fiction, and short plays for stage and screen, now available in paperback and for Kindle at amazon.com/dp/B07SVGNQG6
#immigrationraids #ICE #individualism #ImmigrantsAreWelcomeHere #immigration #Immigrant Image

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Quent Cordair

Quent Cordair Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @QuentCordair

Mar 18, 2021
It was a year ago today that officials of the State of California and the County of Napa issued the shelter-in-place order that prohibited us from opening our gallery's doors, a condition that would come to be extended indefinitely. The forced closure posed a threat to our lives
a threat that would worsen with each passing day of the lockdown, as there can be no art gallery without art buyers, no artists without art sales, no art without artists, no consumption without production, no life without livelihood, no being without doing. No us without ours.
As the quiet days turned into silent weeks, it would become increasingly evident that officials had found themselves in the position of high priests overseeing and orchestrating an orgy of self-sacrifice to the "greater good."
Read 14 tweets
Nov 7, 2020
Penned it in July, 2017. It's as true, and even more important today. "Check your emotions: if you find that your hatred of the left or of the right is more strongly felt than your love for individualism, and if your life is your standard of value,
1/
consider reexamining your premises and your approach. If your political thoughts, words, and actions are essentially reactive, driven primarily and most often by emotions of loathing or fear—you've conceded to playing your enemy's game, and by his rules.
2/
That's a game you'll lose, even if you destroy him, for with destruction comes a vacuum, and while nature may abhor a vacuum, evil adores one. Evil is ever reborn where innocence is left unprotected, where freedoms are left poorly protected.
3/
Read 8 tweets
Oct 21, 2020
"Existence is not a negation of negatives. Evil, not value, is an absence and a negation, evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us. ... a zero cannot hold a mortgage over life.
1/
"You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death we wish to avoid, but life we wish to live.
2/
"You, who have lost the concept of the difference, you who claim that fear and joy are incentives of equal power - and secretly add that fear is more 'practical' - you do not wish to live, and only fear of death holds you to the existence you have damned.
3/
Read 12 tweets
Sep 10, 2020
We were right to reopen the gallery when we did. Our survival depended on it. "Nearly half of California Wine Country businesses closed in the coronavirus pandemic won’t reopen, says Yelp"
#notdyingisnotliving northbaybusinessjournal.com/article/indust…
"Based on the number of business owners who checked “closed” on their Yelp pages, about 3,000 San Francisco Bay Area businesses closed permanently from March 1 to July 10 as a result of the government shelter-in-place orders during the coronavirus pandemic. ...
"All together in Napa and Sonoma counties, 488 closed temporarily or permanently because of the shelter orders. ...
The San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area experienced 5,048 total business closures during the pandemic, with 2,065 labeled permanently, according to Yelp. ...
Read 4 tweets
Sep 7, 2020
"Observe the snarling, hysterical hatred with which they greet any suggestion that sacrifice is not necessary ..."
We've observed it -- we've been the target of it -- from the day we announced we were reopening the gallery. Image
We’ve observed it from neighbors, complete strangers, even from formerly close friends. Altruism's moral standard of sacrifice runs much deeper and wider in the culture than many realize or most would want to admit openly.
The only real disagreement, politically and ideologically, is over the what and how of the sacrifice, over which collective entity is the rightful recipient – the nation, all of mankind, a particular race, tribe, sex, the elderly, the poor, those susceptible to a disease, ad inf.
Read 7 tweets
Aug 31, 2020
"When we say that we hold individual rights to be inalienable, we must mean just that. Inalienable means that which we may not take away, suspend, infringe, restrict or violate—not ever, not at any time, not for any purpose whatsoever.
"You cannot say that “man has inalienable rights except in cold weather and on every second Tuesday,” just as you cannot say that “man has inalienable rights except in an emergency,” or “man’s rights cannot be violated except for a good purpose.”
"Either man’s rights are inalienable, or they are not. You cannot say a thing such as “semi-inalienable” and consider yourself either honest or sane. When you begin making conditions, reservations and exceptions, you admit that there is something or someone above man’s rights,
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(