Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Tamiko Beyer

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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Anchor in the Mud
By Tamiko Beyer

1.

They’ve gone with remediation.

Little bits of change

to refuse real forward. We need strategies

beyond bamboo strips: the enemy

is us, strange warriors

fighting our own bodies’ survival.

The sky breaks. I put on a coat

that burns like sun reflecting off steel.

After months of barely cold, I am comforted

we have come to winter, puff and wool,

burning dust, paint layers. Seasons’

pace now unpredictable, the blue something

electric. We hold our collective

breath long enough to become transparent

on this city built on landfill. We quiver

above a sea happy to take

us back into its arms.

Animal into element.

2.

We shut off the lights, fill the refrigerator

with jars of water. The shoreline that hosted

the eagle this year finally iced over.

The most brittle bushes crushed

under the snow’s weight: twigs encased

in gleaming ice like museum pieces.

If spring comes, we will take bets on what

sprouts again. Green becomes unimaginable

except in the deepest sleep.

3.

Boots and heels both

mine, all sorts of ways to go down.

Come up sweating. Blood and bones poised

to fight, queer defiance. These systems—

our relentless bodies processing

language, food, gesture. Come up

spitting. Defend, attack.

Do not leave money on the table,

solutions to those who hold power, your gender

to others. I keep my ugly

on, my girl close,

I keep the charge full.

Listen as Tamiko Beyer reads "Anchor in the Mud."

Previously published in Other Rooms Press (2017).