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POETRY OF WITNESS

My Black mother rescues me yet again,

I want to be sure that she is seen.

I want to be certain that her story is told and so, this time

America must hear her voice. This time

America must believe her

One

Black

mother's

loss

WILL

be

memorialized.

 

This time

I will not let her go

 

I

cannot

sell

you

this

painting

-"I Cannot Sell you this Painting", 2020

 

There are some mighty voices out there. We need to find these voices, and help to echo them out into the world more and more and more—voices telling the truth, voices demanding change, voices imagining the alternative to hatred (Compassion), voices that can make us cry and bring us a kind of joy that we are not alone. Voices that create beauty out of the most awful things.

Not only that, but we can be the voices, as writers. I leave you, for now, with my spontaneous poem for the day. It is called "Dear Haters"


 

Dear Haters,

Your

infinitesimal spirits

are in danger

of popping

like so many bubbles

if you

keep spewing

hatred like that

 

Like a virus

hatred replicates

itself, in you

is fear

at its base

May you

be free

of fear

and hatred

-"Dear Haters", Donna Rushing

floyd.jpg

Spring Quarter was ushered in under the veil of COVID-19, and is going out on the tsunami wave of grief and anger triggered by the brutal killing of George Floyd... 

 

Our world is reeling from the swirling and overlapping realities of just these two aspects of our complicated existence as humans—one, an infinitesimal virus that can replicate itself, and the other a portion of the population that uses hate as its guiding force. Like a virus, hatred replicates itself. It is fear, at its base.

This week's Time magazine cover, a painting by Titus Kaphar, depicts a Black mother in the pose of holding her child, but the child is not there; only a blank white cut-out space in the shape of her child remains. Open the magazine and you'll find a poem on page four, also by Kaphar, entitled, “I cannot sell you this painting, 2020.” This poem exemplifies the courage of writing poetry during moments of conflict, in the times when it's most dangerous to speak up, speak out, to speak the truth. Titus Kaphar reminds us that this moment has a history, and that the lineage of hate towards Black and Brown and Indigenous people is as yet unbroken.

Kaphar's poem ends:

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