Not the first to sit.
Not the first to get arrested.
Not old (she was 42).
Not tired (‘just tired of giving in’).

One of many, unable to sit
with the injustice of years.
A rider on an old road
walked by millions on tired legs.

These riders fought for a feat,
years in the trudging,
of sole-worn protest
walked in frustrated miles
over landscapes of lives.

One day became thirteen months
of continued mapping,
of hitchhiking and car pools,
of walking and tattered shoes,
because the bus
wasn’t going anywhere they planned to go.

National Poetry Day is 28 September, and this year’s theme is ‘Freedom’  – https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/about-npd/

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement, whom the US Congress called “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks