Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Kelsey May

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.

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Bathsheba Marries Jezebel

by Kelsey May

Bless the eyes that immortalized
your loving, you who lived like the sun;
what teeth couldn’t tear from the narrative;
glitter the years and return. Let me

be your vessel; slake my thirst; I yearn.

Bless your hands for washing; bless
the sheets that caught you; praise the stones
for their breaking. You gave to the king;
you satisfied your husband; you bore the blame

and sons. Bless the women who hear your cries;

bless us all for the trying. Let us love like birds.

Let us scorn the men who cage us.

Split This Rock · Kelsey May Bathsheba Marries Jezebel Audio

Listen as Kelsey May reads "Bathsheba Marries Jezebel."