The Gate Opens

At first it was names in a blue-white window Old streets, old schools, old jokes A room that opened past its walls And found the people it had lost The distance started losing weight A message crossed before the day And speech slipped out of schedule In a small, familiar way The paper still came in the morning The bulletin still held the night But something moved between them now Too quick for either one to write A link would pass between the chatter A headline linger in the room The social air grew wider And the news came walking through It felt like air It felt like light It felt like ordinary voices Finding room outside the night Not yet the swarm Not yet the flood Just current at the open door And wires warming up with blood The gate opens The gate opens And everybody leans toward the sound The gate opens The gate opens And the room no longer ends where it was found The gate opens The gate opens We thought the noise was freedom coming round The telling power shifted sideways Not broken yet, but less complete The old voice still explained the weather But weather moved beneath its feet They told us what the ministers meant They told us why the markets turned But now the room could answer softly And something in the telling learned No one had to own a tower No one had to wait in line A page, a post, a passing comment Could arrive before its time Not yet command, not yet correction Not yet the crowd inside the hand Only the first loose conversation Running underneath the land It still felt free It still felt small Like friends and strangers sharing doorways Through a thinning wall Not yet the call Not yet the storm Just the weather finding openings Before it found its form The gate opens The gate opens And everybody leans toward the sound The gate opens The gate opens And the room no longer ends where it was found The gate opens The gate opens We thought the noise was freedom coming round We thought the walls were breaking We thought the air was new We thought the day was wider Because more of it came through But opening is not an answer And speed is not a mind The old gate did not vanish It just stopped holding back the tide The gate opens The gate opens And current moves from hand to hand The gate opens The gate opens Before the storm can understand The gate opens The gate opens And the sky begins to answer back