We Are Community
Photo by Elliott Stallion on Unsplash
Part 1, The Embrace
Dear Seized Readers,
Early voting has already begun. As we prepare to vote for the next president of the United States as well as a slate of representatives, we should remember that we’re part of a huge and diverse community.
American poet, Aracelis Girmay, has written an embrace of a poem, “You Are Who I Love.” This poem, included on the Academy of American Poets website—poets.org, simultaneously celebrates with and expresses empathy for all of us. Because it is a long poem, I have included excerpts.
I encourage you to click into the link for the poem just below to read it in its entirety.
I hope you enjoy Girmay’s poem of praise,
Diana
Photo by Carlos Magno on Unsplash
from You Are Who I Love … You protecting the river You are who I love/ delivering babies, nursing the sick// You with henna on your feet and a gold star in your nose// …
Photo by Sudheer Rajbhar on Unsplash
You looking into the faces of young people as they pass, smiling and/ saying, Alright! which, they know it, means I see you, Family. I love you. Keep on.// … You are who I love... standing in line for water, stocking the food/ pantries, making a meal//
You are who I love, writing letters, calling the senators, you who, with the seconds of/ your body (with your time here), arrive on buses, on trains, in cars, by foot to stand in/ the January streets against the cool and brutal offices, saying: YOUR CRUELTY/ DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ME//
Photo by Vonecia Carswell on Unsplash
You are who I love, you struggling to see// ... You struggling to love or find a question// You better than me, you kinder and so blistering with anger, you are who I love,/ standing in the wind, … graduating from school, wearing holes/ in your shoes// … You carrying your brother home/ You noticing the butterflies//
Photo by Erin Berk Benli on Unsplash
… You who did and did not survive/ You who cleaned the kitchens/ You who built the railroad tracks and roads/ You who replanted the trees, listening to the work of squirrels and birds, you are who I/ love/ You whose blood was taken, whose hands and lives were taken, with or without your saying/ Yes, I mean to give. You are who I love.//
Photo by Emran Yousof on Unsplash
You who the borders crossed/ You whose fires/ You decent with rage, so in love with the earth/ You writing poems alongside children// … You, my elder/ You are who I love,/ summoning the courage, making the cobbler,// … You are who I love, … leaving who might kill you, crying with the/ love songs, polishing your shoes, lighting the candles, getting through the first day/ despite the whisperers sniping fail fail fail// …
Photo by Brut Carniollus on Unsplash
You are who I love, working the shifts to buy books, rice, tomatoes,// bathing your children as you listen to the lecture, heating the kitchen with the oven,/ up early, up late// …
Photo by Anthony Intraversato on Unsplash
You are who I love, speaking plainly about your pain, sucking your teeth at the airport/ terminal television every time the politicians say something that offends your sense of/ decency, of thought, which is often// … your working heart, how each of its gestures, tiny or big, stand beside my own agony,/ building a forest there// …
You are who I love, carrying the signs, packing the lunches, with the rain on your face// You at the edges and shores, in the rooms of quiet, in the rooms of shouting, in the/ airport terminal, at the bus depot saying “No!”
Photo by Yulissa Tagle on Unsplash
and each of us looking out from the/ gorgeous unlikelihood of our lives at all, finding ourselves here, witnesses to each/ other’s tenderness, which, this moment, is fury, is rage, which, this moment, is another/ way of saying: You are who I love You are who I love You and you and you are who// - Aracelis Girmay Copyright © 2017 by Aracelis Girmay. Reprinted from Split This Rock’s The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database.
Photo by Mario Purisic on Unsplash