Poem Publication

My poem is being published in the journal In Our Own Words, put out by the Women's Center at Grand Valley State University!


A Song of Love, A Song of War

I was telling you a story about love
how even in war it goes on speaking its own language
—Adrienne Rich

Most days, I cannot bear to turn on the news
the stories of violence, of destruction
are different now, after her birth—
sending shock waves through my womb.
So instead I hold my baby in my arms,
sleeping now against my breast,
content, full with milk,
her fingers curled around mine.
There is no communication more perfect than this.

Our breath rises and falls together in the twilight,
the silence only broken by a lone blue jay who sings
outside the window, his own song of love or of regret.

I hum a song, touch the fuzz of her hair,
and wonder: how we will speak out of the
silences that clutch us—
how to begin
in the frightful day
with words that can be tangible
and nourishing as
bread and soup, the common cup?
“How to do what we need for our living,”* everyday?

How to name the fear that
tightens its long tail around the torso
of ignorance, indifference, indolence
in this country?
If we do not name it, it will crush us.

How to make paths that do not destroy us,
to believe in the simple miracles of humanity, of peace,
to press our hands firmly against the earth
to believe that answers move there,
waiting to be reborn?

How to explain that they will not come through the ways we have known,
treacherous paths taken by the men who say they lead us
through wars on terror, Wall Street bailouts, homeland security,
while most of us are left spinning in our own fear and isolation?
Will shopping really save us?

How to find ways to be alive in the twenty-first century
when we know there are reasons for the fears
but not the ones they tell us?
Not the Iraqis, the Afghanis, the Palestinians,
not the immigrants, the blacks, the gays, the poor.

And there are answers
that we won’t hear from the news anchors.
Swirling in the womb of the earth below us,
they have nothing to do with fear,
and nothing to do with war.


*From Audre Lorde’s speech given when she was named State Poet of New York.

A favorite poem

In the midst of scrambling to get ready for the next semester, I read this poem this morning by one of my favorite poets, the Native American poet Joy Harjo. It was like a breath of fresh air. We make our lives so hectic sometimes with plans and activity, that sometimes we forget to experience the miracle of living each day. Anyway, I thought I would share the poem:

ceremony

When considering ceremony the act of preparation is most crucial. Each day is a ceremonial progression in which every human takes part. We do so either consciously or unconsciously. You can prepare by setting the alarm clock and jumping into the world with anxiety, or you can still set the alarm clock, but take time to prepare for the day, by singing, by prayer, by a small acknowledgement of the gift of the day itself.

It has a spirit, this creature called day, and will go on without us, dragging us behind it. Or, we can take part in the ceremony and walk (or run!) with grace into the momentum. For the Mayan this is a science, this naming of the spirits of each day, and by knowing the characteristics of the spirit of each day one can understand the manner in which events will unfold. There’s an overall pattern in this calendar that can be examined and if we follow its logical trail we will arrive at the end of the spiral in the memory field of the Milky Way. All this meaning, we can walk or run blindly through the ceremony of our life, a tricky obstacle course no matter the cultural reference points, or incorporate knowledge that will give this journey a heightened sense of meaning, of beauty, despite the terrible complexities and apparent injustices.

[…]

Maybe the spirits of the days live in the world above the earth we call dawn and stand reverently as the sun arrives in the appointed place in the east. Flowers, plants, all creatures prepare for the sun’s arrival. You can hear the rustle of anticipation as the ultramarine sky turns to a cobalt grey. Deer move towards water to drink. Birds chatter plans for the day. In the distance a few humans begin running towards the east to give the sun encouragement, to make sure the sun returns to bless them.

It’s crucial we participate for the sun needs our songs, prayers, acknowledgements. Too often the weight of humans has been carried by others who have not lost their original instructions on how to live with integrity in this system.

----------------------
From Joy Harjo’s A Map to the Next World. New York: Norton, 2000. Page 58.

Poem by Emmanuel Ortiz, on September 11

This is a powerful poem on September 11 that I came across, and wanted to share.

Love,
Missy

-------------------

Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honour of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September 11th.

I would also like to ask you To offer up a moment of silence For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared,
tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes, For the victims in both Afghanistan and the US

And if I could just add one more thing,
If it's not too much to ask . . .

A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of US-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation. Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year US embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem,

Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa, Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country. Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin And the survivors went on as if alive. A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people, not a war - for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it. A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a secret war .... ssssshhhhh.... Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead. Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia, Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem.

An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years. 45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas 25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky. There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains. And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...

100 years of silence...

For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears. Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness ...

So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.
Not like it always has been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written. And if this is a 9/11 poem, then: This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971. This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977. This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York, 1971.

This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.

This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored. This is a poem for interrupting this program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco Bell, And pay the workers for wages lost. Tear down the liquor stores, The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all... Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we, Tonight we will keep right on singing... For our dead.


EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep 2002
boricano@hotmail.com
*poem printed in "The Roots of Terror," a publication of Project South.

For more information, please visit www.projectsouth.org.