In A Crisis

A note for when words fail

A picture I took last August of a flower that a bird dropped on our dirty patio table. I hope the bird knows I tried to understand.

Neighbors, words fail me now. I told my friend Ramsey Hanhan last week that I’m struggling deeply with writer’s block. Lots of unfinished essays are sitting on my desktop. It was humiliating to tell him that. Ramsey is Palestinian, a prolific and talented writer, who had taken the oxygen right out of lungs at 3 AM on Friday when I opened the Substack app and saw his post, "EVERY DAY IS GOOD FRIDAY IN PALESTINE.” Which, of course, is heart wrenchingly accurate. Obnoxious of me to struggle with words in this context.

And yes, I looked at social media at 3 AM. Just like all of you. Nobody sleeps now. In between dreams of screaming violently at an unmoved crowd or dreams of scalding lightening from an approaching storm or dreams of sobbing children (all dreams people I know have recently shared with me), we check our phones for the next impending evil. From now on, let us be honest about not sleeping. I’m tired of pretending that sound sleep is even achievable.

So, since I can’t even articulate notes worth sending, and since our genocidal government is threatening to “end a civilization,” (I can’t even fathom the arrogance of speaking to Iran about “civilization”) I just want to share some poems written by others. Poems I think communicate what needs to be said . . . Maybe they will communicate something you also think needs to be said.

Calling on All Silent Minorities by June Jordan (1974)

HEY

C’MON
COME OUT

WHEREVER YOU ARE

WE NEED TO HAVE THIS MEETING
AT THIS TREE

AIN’ EVEN BEEN
PLANTED
YET

I first read this a few years ago. June Jordan wrote many things forever ago that apply exactly to right now.

Meditations in an Emergency by Cameron Awkward-Rich (2020)

I wake up & it breaks my heart. I draw the blinds & the thrill of rain breaks my heart. I go outside. I ride the train, walk among the buildings, men in Monday suits. The flight of doves, the city of tents beneath the underpass, the huddled mass, old women hawking roses, & children all of them, break my heart. There’s a dream I have in which I love the world. I run from end to end like fingers through her hair. There are no borders, only wind. Like you, I was born. Like you, I was raised in the institution of dreaming. Hand on my heart. Hand on my stupid heart.

You probably know this one. I come back to it a lot. A lot.

A Threat to the Threat by Drew Jackson (Today)

America is not new to this.

It has done far more than to threaten the extinction of whole civilizations.

This is to say, America has always been a threat to civilization.

As all empires have.

Always will. And what of us?

We the people at this present hour?

Let us be a threat to the threat.

I have followed Drew Jackson for a few years. He is a public theologian and his poetry is often exactly what is needed.

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I hope you are okay, Neighbors. I hope these poems help. I hope we, the people, find our courage soon.

I hope we have the meeting at the tree that hasn’t yet been planted. I hope we stand there agreeing, hands on our stupid hearts, ready to be a threat.

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