CVS on Fire

CVS on Fire

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The CVS on fire on Fox News
and the Fox News truck on fire
on Fox News and the quick
brown fox of the flames
jumping out of the frame are
one. And the night
advancing behind its riot
shield and the big small-town
moon bobble-head bobbing
outside Quicker Cash and
the late-shift Liquor Locker
clerk clocking the CVS
are one with the eternal rock-seated
being, the kingdom of one stone
upon another. I want to believe
there is a mammoth
in the ice of a flipside America
within whose filthy coat no bank
can find us. My kingdom
for a mammoth of heaven
and flame, a many-feathered
shaft-shouldered Fox News truck
invisible to the police. May earth
destroy CVS, may thistle
and sedge and dill and dock
wreck Fox. The yew is a hard tree,
fixed in the earth. The earth
is a hard earth. The grasslands
are wrapped in black wool.
The marshmallow charms and
palm-twigged paternoster
are yours. We’ll follow the two stars
you can see from the city. This is
the five-ton day of the mastodon.
This has happened before. The
earth is hard and rain
is real and flint is cold. The flame
in the rag in the gas in the bottle
in the hand in the air in the future.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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