Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge – Ayling Dominguez

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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Will You?

By Ayling Dominguez

When he speaks in hyperbole it is legitimate

When I do it is

Unfounded

Exaggerated

Another language

Without basis

He speaks his mind without ever thinking twice

But for me, carelessness is too overpriced

Can’t afford not to crash test every thought

And maybe that’s just the way it is when

Meticulous planning runs in the blood

Same way my mother did in the mud

Waited for rain to obstruct border cameras

Render her a bit harder to see

Migrants got that shit down to a science

Because they know better

Know that for us, it is ill-advised

To roll the dice

That if I did, I’d probably get snake eyes

Even though chances of that are 1/36. 2.7%.

And I’ve only ever scored 90-above

2x the work to get half as far

And since it’s numbers we speak of

Oh, I would like to be counted.

But not the way you do

With two red hands’ ten greedy fingers

I am

too

much to be held

& not up for inspection from atop your high horse or watchtower

My fuller consideration

Requires your dismounting

Climb down

Count with your toes

Look like a fool as you attempt to

adjust, adapt — after all

We’ve always had to

Then again

Maybe I don’t just want to be counted, but counted justly;

Maybe instead

If given the option

I’d ask to be

turned into a tree seed

And planted

But only if

you would stop turning me into money

And only if

you would recognize and do right by Native family

Only if

You would

Adjust, adapt

after all

We’ve always had to

Split This Rock · Ayling Dominguez Will You? Audio

Listen as Ayling Dominguez reads “Will You?”