Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume 2, Number 43 December 1 - 7, 2002 Quezon City, Philippines |
Poetry A
Moment of Silence, Before I Start This Poem BY EMMANUEL ORTIZ Before
I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me And
if I could just add one more thing... Before
I begin this poem, relatives'
bones buried in it, their babies born of
it. A
year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos,
victims of a
secret war ... ssssshhhhh.... Say
nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they
are dead. Two
months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia, Whose
names, like the corpses they once represented,
have piled up and slipped off our tongues. Before
I begin this poem. An
hour of silence for El! Salvador ... An
afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ... Two
days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ... None
of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their
living years. 45
seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas 25
years of silence for the hundred million Africans
who found their
graves far deeper in the ocean than any building
could poke
into the sky. There
will be no DNA testing or dental records to
identify their remains. And
for those who were strung and swung from the heights
of sycamore
trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west... 100
years of silence... For
the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples
from this half of
right here, Whose
land and lives were stolen, In
postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded
Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen
Timbers, or the Trail of Tears. Names
now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on
the refrigerator of our consciousness ... So
you want a moment of silence? And
we are all! left speechless Our
tongues snatched from our mouths Our
eyes stapled shut A
moment of silence And
the poets have all been laid to rest The drums disintegrating into dust. Before
I begin this poem, You
want a moment of silence You
mourn now as if the world will never be the same And
the rest of us hope to hell it won't be. Not like
it always has been. Because
this is not a 9/11 poem. This
is a 9/10 poem, It
is a 9/9 poem, A
9/8 poem, A
9/7 poem This is a 1492 poem. This
is a poem about what causes poems like this to
be written. And
if this is a 9/11 poem, then: This
is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971. This
is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South
Africa, 1977. This
is a September 13th poem for the brothers at
Attica Prison, New
York, 1971. This
is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992. This
is a poem for every date that falls to the ground
in ashes This
is a poem for the 110 stories that were never
told The
110 stories that history chose not to write in
textbooks The
110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times,
and Newsweek
ignored. This is a poem for interrupting this program. And
still you want a moment of silence for your dead? We
could give you lifetimes of empty: The
unmarked graves The
lost languages The
uprooted trees and histories The
dead stares on the faces of nameless children Before
I start this poem we could be silent forever Or
just long enough to hunger, For
the dust to bury us And
you would still ask us For more of our silence. If
you want a moment of silence Then
stop the oil pumps Turn
off the engines and the televisions Sink
the cruise ships Crash
the stock markets Unplug
the marquee lights, Delete
the instant messages, Derail the trains, the light rail transit. If
you want a moment of silence, put a brick through
the window of
Taco Bell, And
pay the workers for wages lost. Tear
down the liquor stores, The
townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses,
the Penthouses and the Playboys. If
you want a moment of silence, Then
take it On
Super Bowl Sunday, The
Fourth of July During
Dayton's 13 hour sale Or
the next time your white guilt fills the room where
my beautiful people
have gathered.
You
want a moment of silence Then
take it NOW, Before
this poem begins. Here,
in the echo of my voice, In
the pause between goosesteps of the second hand, In
the space between bodies in embrace, Here
is your silence. Take
it. But
take it all...Don't cut in line. Let
your silence begin at the beginning of crime.
But we, Tonight
we will keep right on singing...For our dead. 11
September 2002 Re-posted
by Bulatlat.com We want to know what you think of this article.
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