Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Susan Bucci Mockler

As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.

In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post. 

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Dark Energy
by Susan Bucci Mockler

--written originally for the parents of the children at Sandy Hook, but, now, sadly applies to many more

Notice what you remember this day:

how clean the air smells,

how warm it is for winter,

how you hoped it would be snowing.

Notice how bare the trees are,

black birds perched

in the empty branches,

cracked ice on a puddle.

Notice lips, hair, skin,

fingertips, tongue,

the place in the sky

you saw the first star

last night and closed your eyes,

from habit, wishing, wishing, wishing.

Notice what you won’t remember:

how quiet it was the moment

after the gunshots,

that the screaming

sounded like coyotes in the desert.

Notice blur of smoke,

river of blood,

skin stuck to walls, missing faces.

Notice your question: 

why must a coffin

hold a child,

why not rocks, mud,

burnt wind, even water?

Notice there is no waking from this dream,

the sky will always be this dark.

the only living will be living

on the edge of a black hole.

Notice a million stars exploding daily.