Written and presented for the 10th Anniversary of the New England Public Radio Arts and Humanities Award. Written in honor of NEPR, my co-award recipients, all independent media and those who create and struggle for justice.
Grace is solace on horseback
riding a first born note
the conductor’s baton rises
restarts our hearts
suspended on longing’s
long held breath
resurrecting our wonder
from unannounced death
back into memory’s embrace
Brackish waters rise
We stand together
the feet of the New Colossus
her torch grows dim
a child’s torn dress gathers dust
in the place where her dreams had been
grieving, turbulent skies
tear open peek holes for
God’s eyes
who by all appearances
has been on vacation
I suspect he’s been profiled
I suspect death by paranoia
I suspect he’s been wrongfully incarcerated
by the solitary confinement of our selfie narcissism
preoccupied less with who we are
than how we appear
I fear that God has decided to wait us out
make his absence felt
as if he was never there to begin with
as if he was she
or non-binary
unnameable too big to conceive
we conspire to contrive what we want to believe
let there be something with or without name
greater than you or me
Reprieve, redemption, revolution
and isn’t a revolution 360 degrees?
a new way to see?
Grace is solace on horseback
riding a first born note
the conductor’s baton rises
restarts our hearts
suspended on longing’s
long held breath
resurrecting our wonder
from unannounced death
back into memory’s embrace
where clear water touches
the lips of our empathy.
the desiccated fingers
of a bewildered boy
pull up mud
somewhere in a place
with a name we can’t pronounce
the conductor’s baton rises
first born note
morsel of moist bread reaching across the world
we stand together on betrayed earth
exploited for her beauty
she has lost her sense of worth
when pages of books turn
we miss her, seek and court her
beg to heal her sorrows
before she’s too far gone
we follow farmers and bees
keepers of our destiny
we who are not alone
must find those who are
words were knots
in my mother’s eyes
there are many who know so much
with little chance to realize
but here you are,
one word, one page at a time
undoing knots with patient hands
so history might rise
pulling blade from sheath
gently coaxing clean blood from sealed wounds
where sighs of knowing link one word to the next
forming sentences
that will interrupt the sentencing
that will stay executions
with or without Governors
society’s betrayed set themselves free
ink is the blood that teaches peace
we stand together against depravity’s walls
pocked by hatred’s stones
where ignorance crushes its own soul
keeping strangers with cures
far from our disease
doors lock from the outside
there is a Golem’s greed to please
demons transfuse their secret despair
our fatigued eyes see monsters
when only we are there
here you are to open doors
confound the abyss by building a floor
not a place on which to fall
but a place on which to land
when suspicion makes a fist
you build trust with open hands
We stand together in the rubble
of the untold
truth, constantly in trouble
rebellious in nature
refusing to conform
demands venue
and here you are
giving truth the floor
The ones who kneel
the ones who stand
the ones who tip
our garbage cans
from the hells of J-Block
to Syria
to Yemen
to Gaza
to Gitmo
to Honduras
to Sudan
to Iraq
to Iran
to the Bronx
to the very streets
where you’ve
planted your feet
you who fight
to keep truth relevant
you who know and tell
the secrets of a human made hell
Puerto Rico
where a storm proclaimed María
takes the blame
for the rape of a nation
robbed of its very name, Borikén
by a hundred year old hurricane
you pull back the curtain
on this ethnic cleanse
you amplify the sound
of muffled blame
atrocities are born
to parents with names
you are the roll call
of their shameless shame
their not so secret crimes
in these most brutal
avariciously consumptive times
Grace is solace on horseback
riding a first born note
the conductor’s baton rises
restarts our hearts
suspended on longing’s
long held breath
resurrecting our wonder
from unannounced death
back into memory’s embrace.
The New Colossus
sends no child,
no dream away.
You, who live and create for justice
are a revolution of human grace.
___________
Copyright, Magdalena Gómez, 2018. May not be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the author.
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