WOW! Beautiful, soulful and wise, inspiring
and empowering! ― Molly
 |
| Artwork: Ricardo Levins Morales |
Danna Schmidt writes:
I’m seeing more than a few posts in my feed about not letting either side drag us into the pit of despair and doom.
I want to offer that perhaps 'sides' is a viewpoint best observed by those sitting on the sidelines in the bystander section of the bleachers that Dr. King Jr. so aptly names the white moderate.
Perhaps too many of us have been tricked into thinking that the side of the oppressor in the blood sport of these times is an actual team.
Yes, this is a long game. Longer than any of us can know. The wins are small on an individual basis but collectively, they mean something and are only possible if we stop being outraged into indifference by the vehemence of the messaging and direct our outrage to building a sustainable habitat for humanity from the ground up.
Yes, the world is noisy but tone policing only benefits the fascists. It’s part of their tactical plan of smoke & mirrors to confuse people and to keep us from engaging, risking, choosing, and moving towards that other world we’d far prefer someone else make possible for us.
But what if all it took was one small but mighty action? What if we decided to get up from those bleachers, like we do when it’s our section’s turn to “do the wave” in the stands? What if, en masse, we walked and wheeled ourselves onto the playing field, past the indignant referees madly blowing their whistles as they yell for us to obey the rules and stay in our seats?
What if we said fuck the rules made only for the elite few? What if we directed our energies to this notion of “more life”?
My thoughts turn to how vital it is that we all understand how dreamwork is the real teamwork. The message here for us is something about vitality. As the poet says, we have to imagine more, hold hands, and lean with all of our being towards that vision. And yes, we have to decide. Apathy is what the mo/faux 'team' is counting on.
I was introduced to Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton this morning by the brother of the poet below, whose artwork is featured here.
Say these words when you lie down and when you rise up,
when you go out and when you return. In times of mourning
and in times of joy. Inscribe them on your doorposts,
embroider them on your garments, tattoo them on your shoulders,
teach them to your children, your neighbors, your enemies,
recite them in your sleep, here in the cruel shadow of empire:
Another world is possible.
Thus spoke the prophet Roque Dalton:
All together they have more death than we,
but all together, we have more life than they.
There is more bloody death in their hands
than we could ever wield, unless
we lay down our souls to become them,
and then we will lose everything. So instead,
imagine winning. This is your sacred task.
This is your power. Imagine
every detail of winning, the exact smell of the summer streets
in which no one has been shot, the muscles you have never
unclenched from worry, gone soft as newborn skin,
the sparkling taste of food when we know
that no one on earth is hungry, that the beggars are fed,
that the old man under the bridge and the woman
wrapping herself in thin sheets in the back seat of a car,
and the children who suck on stones,
nest under a flock of roofs that keep multiplying their shelter.
Lean with all your being towards that day
when the poor of the world shake down a rain of good fortune
out of the heavy clouds, and justice rolls down like waters.
Defend the world in which we win as if it were your child.
It is your child.
Defend it as if it were your lover.
It is your lover.
When you inhale and when you exhale
breathe the possibility of another world
into the 37.2 trillion cells of your body
until it shines with hope.
Then imagine more.
Imagine rape is unimaginable. Imagine war is a scarcely credible rumor
That the crimes of our age, the grotesque inhumanities of greed,
the sheer and astounding shamelessness of it, the vast fortunes
made by stealing lives, the horrible normalcy it came to have,
is unimaginable to our heirs, the generations of the free.
Don’t waver. Don’t let despair sink its sharp teeth
Into the throat with which you sing. Escalate your dreams.
Make them burn so fiercely that you can follow them down
any dark alleyway of history and not lose your way.
Make them burn clear as a starry drinking gourd
Over the grim fog of exhaustion, and keep walking.
Hold hands. Share water. Keep imagining.
So that we, and the children of our children’s children
may live
I want to offer that perhaps 'sides' is a viewpoint best observed by those sitting on the sidelines in the bystander section of the bleachers that Dr. King Jr. so aptly names the white moderate.
Perhaps too many of us have been tricked into thinking that the side of the oppressor in the blood sport of these times is an actual team.
Yes, this is a long game. Longer than any of us can know. The wins are small on an individual basis but collectively, they mean something and are only possible if we stop being outraged into indifference by the vehemence of the messaging and direct our outrage to building a sustainable habitat for humanity from the ground up.
Yes, the world is noisy but tone policing only benefits the fascists. It’s part of their tactical plan of smoke & mirrors to confuse people and to keep us from engaging, risking, choosing, and moving towards that other world we’d far prefer someone else make possible for us.
But what if all it took was one small but mighty action? What if we decided to get up from those bleachers, like we do when it’s our section’s turn to “do the wave” in the stands? What if, en masse, we walked and wheeled ourselves onto the playing field, past the indignant referees madly blowing their whistles as they yell for us to obey the rules and stay in our seats?
What if we said fuck the rules made only for the elite few? What if we directed our energies to this notion of “more life”?
My thoughts turn to how vital it is that we all understand how dreamwork is the real teamwork. The message here for us is something about vitality. As the poet says, we have to imagine more, hold hands, and lean with all of our being towards that vision. And yes, we have to decide. Apathy is what the mo/faux 'team' is counting on.
I was introduced to Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton this morning by the brother of the poet below, whose artwork is featured here.
V’ahavta
by Aurora Levins Morales
Say these words when you lie down and when you rise up,
when you go out and when you return. In times of mourning
and in times of joy. Inscribe them on your doorposts,
embroider them on your garments, tattoo them on your shoulders,
teach them to your children, your neighbors, your enemies,
recite them in your sleep, here in the cruel shadow of empire:
Another world is possible.
Thus spoke the prophet Roque Dalton:
All together they have more death than we,
but all together, we have more life than they.
There is more bloody death in their hands
than we could ever wield, unless
we lay down our souls to become them,
and then we will lose everything. So instead,
imagine winning. This is your sacred task.
This is your power. Imagine
every detail of winning, the exact smell of the summer streets
in which no one has been shot, the muscles you have never
unclenched from worry, gone soft as newborn skin,
the sparkling taste of food when we know
that no one on earth is hungry, that the beggars are fed,
that the old man under the bridge and the woman
wrapping herself in thin sheets in the back seat of a car,
and the children who suck on stones,
nest under a flock of roofs that keep multiplying their shelter.
Lean with all your being towards that day
when the poor of the world shake down a rain of good fortune
out of the heavy clouds, and justice rolls down like waters.
Defend the world in which we win as if it were your child.
It is your child.
Defend it as if it were your lover.
It is your lover.
When you inhale and when you exhale
breathe the possibility of another world
into the 37.2 trillion cells of your body
until it shines with hope.
Then imagine more.
Imagine rape is unimaginable. Imagine war is a scarcely credible rumor
That the crimes of our age, the grotesque inhumanities of greed,
the sheer and astounding shamelessness of it, the vast fortunes
made by stealing lives, the horrible normalcy it came to have,
is unimaginable to our heirs, the generations of the free.
Don’t waver. Don’t let despair sink its sharp teeth
Into the throat with which you sing. Escalate your dreams.
Make them burn so fiercely that you can follow them down
any dark alleyway of history and not lose your way.
Make them burn clear as a starry drinking gourd
Over the grim fog of exhaustion, and keep walking.
Hold hands. Share water. Keep imagining.
So that we, and the children of our children’s children
may live
No comments:
Post a Comment