~
adrienne maree brown writes:
it is not enough to
whisper our discontent
to write to each other
with gaping mouths
we are not observers
we are no audience
at stake is our freedom
And the tenth of Diane Di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters reads:
These are transitional years and the dues
will be heavy.
Change is quick but revolution
will take a while.
America has not even begun as yet.
This continent is seed.
And Hanif Abdurraqib, in “Defiance, Ohio Is the Name of a Band” (video, words), writes about hopelessness:
Defiance, Ohio is a real town in Ohio and the band is not from there
And anyone who is from there either leaves or dies
And he shares stories of tenderness:
And so when the band sings
Here’s to this year I never thought I’d make it through
I put my arms around someone else who did make it and swayed along as a clock swung itself past midnight at the end of December
And he reminds us what defiance looks like:
And the headline said: we will not let this destroy us
and above it is a picture of a mother pulling her young daughter’s frail body close to her chest in front of a worn-down house
And in her eyes is a determination
And in her eyes is daring all the devils of hell to come take what is hers
And sometimes when I read all these words, I have to stop and breathe, and cry. And sometimes they remind me of my grandfather, playing “You’ve got to be carefully taught” til the record was worn through; or the enduring legacy of my ancestors’ Quaker abolitionism. And they remind me of laughter, and hugs, and campfires; of zip ties, and jail cells, and mandarin oranges, passed around; of the fighters, the carers, the martyrs, and the friends.
And they remind me that we have been fighting a very, very long time. We’d better not stop now.