[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Before I start this poem . . . .

[Margaret E. Kosal]

>A MOMENT OF SILENCE, BEFORE I START THIS POEM
>
>     Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
>     In a moment of silence
>     In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the
>     Pentagon last September 11th.
>     I would also like to ask you
>     To offer up a moment of silence
>     For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,
>     disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those
>     strikes,
>     For the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.
>
>     And if I could just add one more thing...
>     A full day of silence
>     For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the
>     hands of U.S.-backed Israeli
>     forces over decades of occupation.
>     Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,
>     mostly children, who have died of
>     malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year U.S.
>     embargo against the country.
>
>     Before I begin this poem,
>     Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South
>     Africa,
>     Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.
>     Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
>     Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of
>     concrete, steel, earth and skin
>     And the survivors went on as if alive.
>     A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people,
>     not a war - for those who
>     know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their
>     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.
>
>     EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep 2002.