A magazine focusing on the intersection of art and action
to create greater social, racial and economic justice
July 2025
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"A Dubious Light." by Cheryl Caesar
a gouache sketch done from a news photo.
Cheryl Caesar is an ex- expatriate, having lived for 25 years in France, Italy and the Republic of Ireland. She teaches writing at Michigan State University. She shows her artwork and gives readings locally, and publishes them internationally. Her anti-Trump chapbook Flatman was published by Thurston Howl Publications in 2020.
The poem, Three Windows, is easier to explain. Watching the brutal ICE raids in California, and then the military attacks against the protests of local residents, I felt as though I can't just watch. I can't stand outside the window. I must be either a moth or a spider. It's hard to imagine a moth defeating a spider, but a thousand moths might do it. Or five million - the estimated national participation at the No Kings rally. (My friends and I marched at the Lansing State Capitol.)
The painting, A Dubious Light, for me expresses the dread of being yanked off the streets by nameless, faceless figures. They have the camo-spotted bodies and the insectile heads of their paramilitary gear. The "dubious light" of mauve and yellow tones expresses my deep unease, the sense of wrongness. The man being taken has this light shone full in his face, but he has no other human faces to look to.
It isn't the sick feeling of seeing an accident as you pass on the highway, "unable to tear your eyes away." This is different. We must serve as witnesses to these outrages, if there is any chance of overcoming the regime that is perpetrating them. But at the same time, coming forward as witness means exposing yourself as a target for the same treatment. The dread is doubled.
See the poem below by Cheryl Caesar titled “Three Windows”. For more information, read an article by the American Immigration Council on their website titled The Landscape Of Immigration Detention in the United States.
(Editor’s note: Zach Charles, said of this painting, ”the painting attached to the poem paints a good picture of the difficulty in reacting appropriately to such painful times, and the pain of being unable to tear your eyes away.”)
We are an artistic community that recognizes the intersectionality of all injustices
and believes that art is essential to social change and more justice.
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A weekly column for you to share the actions you are taking to resist the erosion of our democratic institutions and practices and the rise of authoritarianism. We hope that sharing your stories will provide ideas and inspiration for others to take whatever action they are willing and able to take. Every individual action we take is part of a broad collective effort for justice. Please keep your stories to 150 words max and email to breatheeveryone@gmail.com. Feel free to include a photo of the action taken if appropriate.
Easement Watercolor by Michael Moreth
New Language by Lew Jones
AccomplishedWatercolor by Michael Moreth
Social Metaphor by Lew Jones
AccomplishedWatercolor by Michael Moreth
'Hard Work and Good Intentions' by Lew Jones
By Cheryl Caesar
(What one reader said of Cheryl’s poem: your poem sent chills throughout my body! I love the juxtaposition of the moth and spider and the rally of people with wings of resistance~At first, it is only a blurring of wings,”
a frenzied sphere of movement. So fast
I cannot discern color or shape. Nearly all
its mass has turned to energy, vibrating
in the lower left corner of my kitchen window.
I go to lift the sash, and see
for the first time a small dark dot
gliding down the white frame, its eight
legs motionless. Arriving at the captive,
who is not trapped between panes, but tethered