[Imc] I thought this relevant, although a bit long

[Erfanlifespan at aol.com]

Subj:   love
Date:   10/11/2001 4:03:53 PM Central Daylight Time
From:   Babaruba
To: Erfanlifespan


A poem by Suheir Hammad

1. there have been no words.
i have not written one word. 
no poetry in the ashes south of canal street. 
no prose in the refrigerated trucks driving debris and dna. 
not one word. today is a week, and seven is of heavens, gods, science. 
evident out my kitchen window is an abstract reality. 
sky where once was steel. 
smoke where once was flesh. fire in the city air and i feared for my sister's 
life in a way
never 
before. and then, and now, i fear for the rest of us. first, please god, let 
it be a mistake, the pilotâs heart failed, 
the 
plane's engine died. 
then please god, let it be a nightmare, wake me now. 
please god, after the second plane, please, donât let it be anyone 
who looks like my brothers. i do not know how bad a life has to break in 
order to kill. 
i have never been so hungry that i willed hunger 
i have never been so angry as to want to control a gun over a pen. 
not really. 
even as a woman, as a palestinian, as a broken human being. 
never this broken. more than ever, i believe there is no difference. 
the most privileged nation, most americans do not know the 
difference 
between indians, afghanis, syrians, muslims, sikhs, hindus. 
more than ever, there is no difference.

2. thank you korea for kimchi and bibim bob, and corn tea and the 
genteel smiles of the wait staff at wonjo *Esmiles never revealing 
the heat of the food or how tired they must be working long midtown 
shifts. thank you korea, for the belly craving that brought me 
into 
the city late the night before and diverted my daily train ride 
into 
the world trade center. there are plenty of thank yous in ny right now. thank 
you for my 
lazy procrastinating late ass. thank you to the germs that had me 
call in sick. thank you, my attitude, you had me fired the week 
before. thank you for the train that never came, the rude nyer who 
stole my cab going downtown. thank you for the sense my mama gave 
me 
to run. thank you for my legs, my eyes, my life. 

3. the dead are called lost and their families hold up shaky 
printouts in front of us through screens smoked up. we are looking for iris, 
mother of three. please call with any 
information. we are searching for priti, last seen on the 103rd 
floor. she was talking to her husband on the phone and the line 
went. please help us find george, also known as adel. his family 
is 
waiting for him with his favorite meal. i am looking for my son, 
who 
was delivering coffee. i am looking for my sister girl, she 
started 
her job on monday. i am looking for peace. i am looking for mercy. i am 
looking for 
evidence of compassion. any evidence of life. i am looking for 
life. 

4. ricardo on the radio said in his accent thick as yuca, "i will 
feel so much better when the first bombs drop over there. and my 
friends feel the same way." 
on my block, a woman was crying in a car parked and stranded in 
hurt. 
i offered comfort, extended a hand she did not see before she 
said, 
"we're gonna burn them so bad, i swear, so bad." my hand went to 
my 
head and my head went to the numbers within it of the dead iraqi 
children, the dead in nicaragua. the dead in rwanda who had to vie 
with fake sport wrestling for america's attention. yet when people sent 
emails saying, this was bound to happen, lets 
not forget u.s. transgressions, for half a second i felt resentful. 
hold up with that, cause i live here, these are my friends and fam, 
and it could have been me in those buildings, and we're not bad 
people, do not support america's bullying. can i just have a half 
second to feel bad? if i can find through this exhaust people who were left 
behind to 
mourn and to resist mass murder, i might be alright. thank you to the woman 
who saw me brinking my cool and blinking 
back 
tears. she opened her arms before she asked "do you want a hug?*E 
a 
big white woman, and her embrace was the kind only people with the 
warmth of flesh can offer. i wasn't about to say no to any 
comfort. 
"my brother's in the navy,"i said. "and we're arabs" "wow, you 
got double trouble." word. 

5. one more person ask me if i knew the hijackers. 
one more motherfucker ask me what navy my brother is in. 
one more person assume no arabs or muslims were killed. 
one more person assume they know me, or that i represent a people. 
or that a people represent an evil. or that evil is as simple as a 
flag and words on a page. we did not vilify all white men when mcveigh bombed 
oklahoma. 
america did not give out his family's addresses or where he went to 
church. or blame the bible or pat robertson. and when the networks air 
footage of palestinians dancing in the 
street, there is no apology that hungry children are bribed with 
sweets that turn their teeth 
brown. that correspondents edit images. that archives are there 
to 
facilitate lazy and inaccurate journalism. and when we talk about holy books 
and hooded men and death, why do 
we 
never mention the kkk? if there are any people on earth who understand how 
new york is 
feeling right now, they are in the west bank and the gaza strip. 

6. today it is ten days. last night bush waged war on a man once 
openly funded by the 
cia. i do not know who is responsible. read too many books, know 
too many people to believe what i am told. i don't give a fuck 
about 
bin laden. his vision of the world does not include me or those i 
love. and petittions have been going around for years trying to 
get 
the u.s. sponsored taliban out of power. shit is complicated, and 
i don't know what to think. but i know for sure who will pay. in the world, 
it will be women, mostly colored and poor. women 
will 
have to bury children, and support themselves through grief. 
"either you are with us, or with the terrorists" - meaning keep your 
people 
under control and your resistance censored. meaning we got the 
loot 
and the nukes. in america, it will be those amongst us who refuse blanket 
attacks on 
the shivering. those of us who work toward social justice, in 
support of civil liberties, in opposition to hateful foreign 
policies. i have never felt less american and more new yorker - particularly 
brooklyn, than these past days. the stars and stripes on all these 
cars and apartment windows represent the dead as citizens first - not 
family members, not lovers. i feel like my skin is real thin, and that my 
eyes are only going to 
get darker. the future holds little light. my baby brother is a man now, and 
on alert, and praying five times a 
day that the orders he will take in a few days time are righteous and 
will not weigh his soul down from the afterlife he deserves. both my brothers 
- my heart stops when i try to pray - not a beat to 
disturb my fear. one a rock god, the other a sergeant, and both 
palestinian, practicing muslim, gentle men. both born in brooklyn 
and their faces are of the archetypal arab man, all eyelashes and 
nose and beautiful color and stubborn hair. what will their lives be like 
now? over there is over here. 


7. all day, across the river, the smell of burning rubber and limbs 
floats through. the sirens have stopped now. the advertisers are 
back on the air. the rescue workers are traumatized. the skyline is 
brought back to human size. no longer taunting the gods with its 
height. i have not cried at all while writing this. i cried when i saw those 
buildings collapse on themselves like a broken heart. i have never 
owned pain that needs to spread like that. and i cry daily that my 
brothers return to our mother safe and whole. there is no poetry in this. 
there are causes and effects. there are 
symbols and ideologies. mad conspiracy here, and information we will 
never know. there is death here, and there are promises of more. there is 
life here. anyone reading this is breathing, maybe hurting, 
but breathing for sure. and if there is any light to come, it will 
shine from the eyes of those who look for peace and justice after the 
rubble and rhetoric are cleared and the phoenix has risen. affirm life. 
affirm life. 
we got to carry each other now. 
you are either with life, or against it. 
affirm life. 

suheir hammad >>



Filmmaker David Zeiger distributed a letter entitled Our Grief is Not a Cry 
for War to IFP Market attendees in New York last week.  A copy of his letter 
can be found on our website - http://www.artistsnetwork.org.  

You can reach others in the arts community who need to be called on during 
this critical hour to speak through their art, to make statements in the 
media, and to network with other artists to bring into being new works and 
collaborations to make the most powerful impact possible...Send us your 
thoughts.

Poet Suheir Hammad sent us this poem.  She also performed recently at a 
reading in New York against the war organized by performance artist Danny 
Hoch -