Mario, delicate, passionate son of working people,
Italian-American from Queens. You grew to lead,
unwittingly, a movement in Berkeley with words
that moved a crowd to courage for the right
to speak, that swept a nation. When the state
came down, like many you retreated some said
you hid from that force and the fury of fame
in a small bookstore, your heart weakening, your
hair turning gray but here you were again,
for the young and the voiceless 'til this time
your heart broke. While another from your
age, callow with ambition, climbs
the podium, craving the cheers. As you lie still
he locks us into the middle of the machine
whose wheels you cried for us to clog in 1964.