Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Naomi Ortiz

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

We asked poets to give us the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

***
Content Notice: Migration, border crossing, PTSD, intergenerational/inherited trauma, state violence

Seeker in the Borderlands

By Naomi Ortiz

1.

Seeker, enter softly. Great fear lives here. 

Enter only with what you must take. 

Be ready to separate from it all - even your child,

 your child,     your heart, 

 your child,              your heart, 

 your child,              your heart, 

 your child,     your heart

My father still will not talk about

crossing. 

His story always starts in the cotton fields of Texas.

His story always starts with survival,

the ways he was useful. 

In his history of self, 

there is before crossing, and there is after.

In between 

is a trauma that breath is not strong enough

to carry past lips, 

to breathe out into sunshine.

I’ve learned there is no good time to ask. 

The rigidity of his inner strength, his stubborn streak, 

reminds me 

that sometimes the body can endure what the soul cannot speak of. 

I wonder if his journey started now, 

if in addition to all that is unnamed,

had been separated from his mother, 

the only family who held his hand

in this new place, 

would his story still be one of survival?

If he was placed stagnant and alone 

in a crowd of children,

would his blood have forgotten how to move?

Would his child mind conformed to the weight of hate? 

Folded to self-protect, to accept -

how to live in a cage?

What will be the stories of these fathers?

2.

In my family’s borderlands, 

tears flood the crevices of canyons eroded by bulldozers and Border Patrol tires.

The inter-generational devotion to duality is being torn away, 

replaced by a 30-foot metal monument to a false sense of security.

Plants, animals, people all try to survive without movement. 

Without movement, one can never belong. 

                                                             Here.

Split This Rock · Naomi Ortiz Seeker in the Borderlands Audio

Listen as Naomi Ortiz reads "Seeker in the Borderlands."

Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Naazneen Diwan

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

We asked poets to give us the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

***

Make a Season of Me

By Naazneen Diwan

on some days I go for walks

completely inverted 

my insides untucked

no protection. 

and it suits me 

my heart no longer

behind ribs but  

the breast of a robin

calling its love home. 

my breath

no longer a wheeze 

caught 

between 

narrow strictures

but a dance

that frees  

magnolia petals and prisoners 

into a pond.

and I pull

yards off myself

generously

eagerly

until

I am the path 

I walk on

and I match 

the laziness of the river. 

I loosen 

what’s been  

carved into me 

in ribbons of bark 

let the raw 

materials of my hurt 

be foraged 

to build a nest 

high 

in a branch. 

a perfect place 

to sing

of coming

undone.

Split This Rock · Naazneen Diwan Make A Season Of Me Audio

Listen as Naazneen Diwan reads "Make a Season of Me."

Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Liza Sparks

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

We asked poets to give us the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

***

There is a Mountain Stream at my Door

By Liza Sparks

the babble and meandering here to remind me

to keep on moving they enter my apartment

they tell me the most important things 

are the living things they water all of my plants

the spider plant I have been neglecting 

mountain stream hugs my cat

apologizes remembering cats

do not like being in water

invites the dogs to take a drink

giggles and laughs in that mountain stream way

all sparkle I want to tell you

says mountain stream about seasons

about cycles about winter about rest

about the cold and the freeze

about life about death

about continuing about my friends

about salmon and stone 

I want to tell you about even the smallest

creatures I want to tell you about clouds

tell you about mirrors and reflections

tell you…remind you to drink water

and also that it is okay to cry

make room

make room

I want to tell you about the leaves that fall 

from the trees dance in the water 

I want to tell you about the roots that feed 

that drink what feeds you what nourishes you 

can you send your roots to those places 

I am here to remind you 

that these are places you have already been 

already known 

mountain stream smiles 

and flows through the house 

strums the guitar 

plucks the strings on the viola 

remember they sing 

that song in your heart 

it is still there 

even in the rain 

mountain stream 

leaves as quickly as they arrived 

babbling all the way down 

the stairs of the apartment 

complex

Split This Rock · Liza Sparks There is a Mountain Stream at my Door Audio

Listen as Liza Sparks reads "There is a Mountain Stream at my Door."

Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Mary Donovan

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

We asked poets to give us the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

***

it didn't happen

By Mary Donovan

imagined room full of ants.

must-be decay. they are

crawling through my

journals. devouring my

sheets. bleeding ink of

less lost-love than mis-

adventure. in other words,

youth. they are feeding

on my stories.

perhaps moths too. mice.

crowning themselves

with old loved t-shirt

from my mother, with

manatees, environmental

slogan – it was the 70s.

the ants becoming political.

cracking my mirror and

arming themselves with

the shards. fashioning 

armor from prints on 

the wall. philosophizing

at my desk. reading

Bolaño in my bed. 

laying eggs in 

dying cacti.

when they hatch

will I be back?

with vinegar &

mint oil & other

tentative solutions?

maybe moved to 

new country with

new moons with

more words in

new journals.

they smoke, fog

up my windows. 

dance to neighbors

reggaeton. & opera.

they come by the thousands.

Split This Rock · Mary Donovan it didn’t happen Audio

Listen as Mary Donovan reads "it didn't happen."

Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – JohnnieRenee Nia Nelson

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

We asked poets to give us the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

***

Shades of Solace

By JohnnieRenee Nia Nelson

for “After the Storm” by Kadir Nelson 

The cyan blue patch

centered in the background

emerges from two clouds

one grayish purple

the other, gray tinged with orange,

and heralds the promise of a post-coronavirus world

-a brighter day ahead. 

The image of the hugging

and hand-clasping people

still as starfish, with raised chins 

and raised eyes trained toward the light

speaks to their once-again connectedness 

and to the collective strengths of humankind

as they dare to stare straight ahead 

at a kinder, more compassionate future. 

Just outside the frame

a golden eagle resides

inside the artist's visionary palette.

Split This Rock · JohnnieRenee Nia Nelson Shades Of Solace Audio

Listen as JohnnieRenee Nia Nelson reads "Shades of Solace." 

Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Sprout Foster-Goodrich

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

We asked poets to give us the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

***
Content Notice: Violence against trans people, references to self-harm 

Trans, As In, “Transcendent”

By Sprout Foster-Goodrich

In memory of the 11 transgender and gender-nonconforming people killed as of May, 2020.

When I found out I was supposed to be a girl:

Know that

we never needed this body

In Mrs. Morgan’s second grade class,

I took an eraser to my forearm: skin rolled

back into dull gray ash, a streak

of pink beaconed

I peeled the rough-house from my muscles,

If we are reduced to ghosts

shuffled around courtrooms

Extended raw vessels like flower stems

into the boys’ hardening hands

If the shards of our shells

are rearranged into grenades

I tossed my vodka-marinated meat

into sweaty basement EDM parties, my squat-

tailored ass scooping pink bits

off the floor into the myriad mouths

of hydra men

and then returned to us

I lured boys back

into my creaky bed, crammed in a closet

Asked them to fuck my skeleton clean

of any scraps that survived the night’s teeth

We never even needed this body

So, as you can see,

No one can erase me

better than me  

We are clouds

that cannot be ripped down from heaven

Split This Rock · Sprout Foster-Goodrich Trans, As In "Transcendent" Audio

Listen as Sprout Foster-Goodrich reads "Trans, As In, 'Transcendent.'" 

Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Kim Roberts

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

We asked poets to give us the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

***

Order Ephemeropta, The Mayfly Family
By Kim Roberts

Each Spring coffin flies,

ephemera guttulata, emerge from the water

in tangled skeins, in hordes.

They mature in a matter of hours.

At dusk they mate in midair,

then in vast regiments

attack light: street lights, lamps

seen through glass panes. Underneath

the yellow porch light of the lake house,

the bodies pile up a foot deep.

Thoreau wrote, Am I not partly leaves

and vegetable mould myself?

Life spends itself so cheaply.

The pale amber wings, veined

with these fragile runes, lap

against one another like loose shingles.

In the morning, gathered in my dustpan,

death weighs almost nothing.

Split This Rock · Kim Roberts Order Ephemeropta Audio

Listen as Kim Roberts reads "Order Ephemeropta."

Published in The Southern Review, Spring 2019. 

Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Rita Pellegrini

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

We asked poets to give us the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

***

Hit and Run
By Rita Pellegrini

Once you tried making yours the soil 

we were born into.

To plant plastic red flowers 

where our yellow trumpet trees bloomed.

You took our books, filled them

with your vernacular of fear. 

You changed the syntax

of our present. Our future,

captured in a souvenir snowglobe

you used as a paperweight.

One day, you got tired of weeding our hope 

that grew under each moon.

So you went back home to tend

to the rhododendrons in your manicured lawn.

Purple hydrangeas you cut to fit perfectly

in the wide-mouth vase on your dining room table.

As for us, we became archeologists

of dreams. Digging bones 

from stone walls.

Split This Rock · Rita Pellegrini Hit And Run Audio

Listen as Rita Pellegrini reads "Hit and Run."

Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Leona Sevick

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

We asked poets to give us the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

***

Cheomseongdae

By Leona Sevick

“Star Gazing Platform,” 7th century Korea, Silla Dynasty

I think of her leaning over ink-stained scrolls,
closely examining lines that would become
the cut granite fitted together just so, 
one for each day of the lunar calendar. 
Holding back the long, silk sleeves of her hanbok,
she lowers her face to the paper, pictures

night growing dark inside the square aperture
through which everyone, even peasants, will pass.
Inside, they will turn hopeful gazes upward
to the top of the tower, quietly sense
the hanja whispering “well” to the bright stars.
Now they’ll believe the rains and strong sun will come.
It is the second year of Queen Seondeok’s 
reign, and her people find themselves in the skilled
hands of a benevolent woman ruler.

They would have pitied us here in America.

Split This Rock · Leona Sevick Cheomseongdae Audio

Listen as Leona Sevick reads "Cheomseongdae."

Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – adrienne danyelle oliver

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.  ― Gwendolyn Brooks  

As we journey through political, economic, and global health crises, we turn to poetry to share truths that unearth underlying causes, illuminate impacts, and insist on transformative change. For many of us, today’s challenges are not new. The struggle of isolation, economic insecurity, inadequate medical care, deadly institutionalized negligence, governmental decisions that put Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, sick, and other structurally precarious people at greater risk are not new. Today, many more people are experiencing the vulnerability of these unrelenting issues. We recognize this opportunity for a heightened awareness of how our very survival depends on one another.

Poetry can help keep the flame of resilience, solidarity, and resistance alive in us. It can help us process and move through grief, anger, loneliness. Poetry can be a comfort when the most necessary actions are to rest and recover. It can remind us of what’s at stake, that our lives and legacy are worth the fight. As cultural workers, we know that culture shapes our political and social imagination at a foundational level. As poets, we can use poetry to map what is, what has been, and possibly, the way forward, including the reasons not to return to what does not honor and protect our lives, our communities, and our planet.

We asked poets to give us the words they chant to get out of bed, to raise their fists, to encourage their kin, to remind us, as this crisis does, that “we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” To read all of these poems, visit Split This Rock’s website.

***

:food stamp line

By adrienne danyelle oliver

HEART breaks in this place. I wait in line where the footprints tell me

exactly six feet behind the person in front of me

I can’t take my eyes off the cheap suit that greets me

I knows good suits

not because I can afford them but because I used to work

for folks who could

Cheap suit gives me paper, pen 

a clipboard to press on

to make sure the social goes through

white, pink, and yellow

Waiting for my number

to be called

I read a book

(ideas between shiny covers

holding pages bound by thread and industrial glue) 

supposedly to save my life

I sit  here

because Words cannot feed me as much as chewing

Good intentions and ideas cannot comfort me as much as

fullness in my belly

 

when my number is called

a strained smile greets me

I wonder what it feels like to be graced with a living smile--

a parting of lips and a dancing of teeth--rather than this ghost of one

strained smile leads me to a cubicle

does not ask about my day

make small talk about the weather

I walk behind her in silence

comforted(?) by the assumption that she is doing fine. Like I am

really not. Both our bodies occupying the space 

of 99%. That good government salary barely enough

to pay her rent 

We both walked into this building

carrying a weighted breath 

Split This Rock · adrienne danyelle oliver :food stamp line Audio

Listen as adrienne danyelle oliver reads ":food stamp line."