How Is It Deemed A Protest? Poem by Mark Heathcote

How is it when Greta Thunberg sits on a roadside, being brave?
How is it deemed a protest? A threat in your eyes
Yes, this child sat cross-legged on a roadside, going nowhere.
Clutching a book, surrounded by military police with batons
Like a ground invasion to block out a divisible, shrinking sun.
How is it deemed a protest? A threat in your eyes
How does this teen threaten your regime? By being brave
Whose civilisation is being threatened by her bravery?
Surely, it's just a dream, and when she opens her eyes,
There'll be feathered pillows and a mother's palm on her forehead.
One to wipe away her tears and comfort her cries, many.
But no, how is this possible? She's waking in chains.
Facing the evil weight of a bullying nation somehow,
Demonising her every breath, don't they have any moral courage?
Are they all brothers in one corrupt hood?
Doesn't anyone care for her? Are they lice or fleas?
On a dog that cannot scratch the smallest part of an itch?
It's like watching a blind, dumb boxer in heavy gloves.
Punch-drunk looking for guidance without a referee.
A leader, a hero, but still willing to hit an opponent on the ropes, the floor.
To win a battle without knowing what they're fighting for.
What political end is there in crushing one child willing to be brave?
Political angles bruise, but they don't quit; they break your heart.
And show you, you have lost all your grace.

They show you that you walk in hell as ghosts, at times, one and all.