Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join meIn a moment of silenceIn honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and thePentagon last September 11th.I would also like to ask youTo offer up a moment of silenceFor 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 silenceFor the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at thehands of U.S.-backed Israeliforces over decades of occupation.Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,mostly children, who have died ofmalnourishment 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 ofconcrete, steel, earth and skinAnd 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 whoknow a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, theirrelatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims ofa 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, havepiled 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, Chiapas25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who foundtheir graves far deeper in the ocean than any building couldpoke 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 ofsycamore 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 halfof right here,Whose land and lives were stolen,In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, SandCreek,Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on therefrigerator of our consciousness ...So you want a moment of silence?And we are all left speechlessOur tongues snatched from our mouthsOur eyes stapled shutA moment of silenceAnd the poets have all been laid to restThe drums disintegrating into dust.Before I begin this poem,You want a moment of silenceYou mourn now as if the world will never be the sameAnd the rest of us hope to hell it won't be. Not like it always hasbeen.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 poemThis 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 ashesThis is a poem for the 110 stories that were never toldThe 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooksThe 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, andNewsweek 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 gravesThe lost languagesThe uprooted trees and historiesThe dead stares on the faces of nameless childrenBefore I start this poem we could be silent foreverOr just long enough to hunger,For the dust to bury usAnd you would still ask usFor more of our silence.If you want a moment of silenceThen stop the oil pumpsTurn off the engines and the televisionsSink the cruise shipsCrash the stock marketsUnplug 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 windowof Taco Bell,And pay the workers for wages lost.Tear down the liquor stores,The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, thePenthouses and the Playboys.If you want a moment of silence,Then take itOn Super Bowl Sunday,The Fourth of JulyDuring Dayton's 13 hour saleOr the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautifulpeople have gathered.You want a moment of silenceThen 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.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
A MOMENT OF SILENCE, BEFORE I START THIS POEM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Use of any abusive or inappropriate language will give us a reason to delete your comment.