When Words Fall Short
For many people, the past two weeks have been disorienting and anxiety-provoking. I've scrapped several essay attempts because words fall short. One of the ways I cope when the world and news are confounding is to ground myself by reading poetry. This week, I offer you poems of transformation and healing from Mary Oliver, Tupak Shakur, Joy Harjo, and Tracy K. Smith.
The Journey by Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice– though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do– determined to save the only life you could save.
The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet. Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.
I Give You Back (or Fear Poem) by Joy Harjo I release you, my beautiful and terrible fear. I release you. You were my beloved and hated twin, but now, I don’t know you as myself. I release you with all the pain I would know at the death of my children. You are not my blood anymore. I give you back to the soldiers who burned down my home, beheaded my children, raped and sodomized my brothers and sisters. I give you back to those who stole the food from our plates when we were starving. I release you, fear, because you hold these scenes in front of me and I was born with eyes that can never close. I release you I release you I release you I release you I am not afraid to be angry. I am not afraid to rejoice. I am not afraid to be black. I am not afraid to be white. I am not afraid to be hungry. I am not afraid to be full. I am not afraid to be hated. I am not afraid to be loved. to be loved, to be loved, fear. Oh, you have choked me, but I gave you the leash. You have gutted me but I gave you the knife. You have devoured me, but I laid myself across the fire. I take myself back, fear. You are not my shadow any longer. I won’t hold you in my hands. You can’t live in my eyes, my ears, my voice my belly, or in my heart my heart my heart my heart But come here, fear I am alive and you are so afraid of dying.
(The above audio is the poem read by Joy Harjo.)
(The will to see oneself as fragile) by Tracy K. Smith The will to see oneself as fragile, fallible, liable to fail. To consider a stranger and hear, in the mind’s ear, one’s true voice insisting: I must change. Ordinary people do this Patient urgent work alone and together day upon day upon day. Like my mother, once, leading her ailing mother back through the maze of our suburban scrawl, past ache, past haze, past confusion and rage toward a neat room where waited prayer, fear, forgiveness, grief, grace. This is a poem about kin and neighbors and nations adrift, in error, under siege. This is a ceasefire poem.