Poetry as a Unifying Weapon
There is no breath, no poem long enough to say the solidarity we, Black American people, feel ancestrally for our brothers and sisters in Palestine.
Julia Wright
My first encounter with poetry was a haiku by my father. He would say to me, “You can write them, too.” After his death, I finally ventured into writing those short poems and realized they were all about breath, how we breathe the world in and out, in moments of inter-being.
When Eric Garner and George Floyd were blood-choked to the point of being definitively deprived of breath — poetry became a legitimate weapon, enabling us as a death-bound people to breathe, whatever the pressure. After October 7, the haiku I wrote became longer, turning kite-like, reaching out across the sea to the Palestinian people. There is no breath, no poem long enough to say the solidarity we, Black American people, feel ancestrally for our brothers and sisters in Palestine.
The tragedy of children, babies born into the genocide who survive for a time only to die from it, is almost impossible to “poeticize.” The fact that Refaat Alareer’s daughter is now dead — for whom he had written “If I Must Die”—is a challenge to our very poetry. But Alareer’s poetic breath will always be the wind that blows our word stones. May he rest in Palestine.
EARTH TO EARTH, PIECES TO PIECES
To the mother and father of Refaat Alareer. To Asem Alnabih who found the body of Refaat Alareer and bore testimony to the ordeal.
i can get down
on the floor of our collective pain
and start piecing together
the blown bits of this — a poem
stitched and glued
to lay
next to the others
on his grave
When i found out,
my words crashed—
as earthenware dishes
would shatter
on the ground
in
an infinity of pieces
when i found out,
i tried to write
this poem
but it scattered—
a beach covered
with the empty shells
of lost meaning
when i found out,
hope
became
a broken circle
with a sinking center
when i was told,
my stanza lines
could not align
and were full
of word mines
now that the dust of the news
has settled in the rubble
of my soul
this is what i know:
the body of Refaat Alareer
our beloved poet murdered
last year
by the zionist army
was finally found
but without a full body
little do they understand
they tried
they tried
but could not blow asunder
a body of work
that is now soaring
whole—
a Kite Supreme
out of the reach of the Iron Dome
far far away
from Where Is Daddy
in the galaxies
of the impregnable Earth of our sky
if they failed
to destroy the essence
of his integrity
i can get down
on the floor of our collective pain
and start piecing together
the blown bits of this — a poem
stitched and glued
to lay
next to the others
on his grave
© Julia Wright. All rights reserved to the family of Refaat Alareer.
FOR THE BABY ANCESTORS IN GAZA
in the corner
of my house
that receives
the most sun beams
i have built
a secular altar
on my humble wooden floor
candles are lit
for the tiny children
who become ancestors
each day
in Gaza
and i create a garden
of peace
for them
with my favorite plants
to keep their spirits company—
healing aloe vera
tall and wise papyrus
resistant bamboo
sun absorbent succulents
the vigilance of snake plants
delicious edible portulaca
as well as
a young acacia
rescued from
the climate war
i whisper
bedtime stories
to those baby ancestors
i share with them
our hope push-ups
I tell them how
i take this daily
darkness
with a grain of light
and at night
i let them know my secret:
i lie in bed
counting not the sheep
i would not wish
to die like anyway—
but streets and streets
of victories
to be thanked
NO TIME FOR RHYME NOW
no time for rhyme
now
no time
now
to study academically
with placebos
the depth
of our ongoing suffering
no time
for the niceties
of alliterations
no time
for warriors’ rest
now
no time
for
fancy titles
and
visiting cards
and
a pecking order
in the revolution
no time
for
distraction
no time
even
for a spotlight
on predictable rhythm
in the syncopated times
of the death throes
of capitalism
there is
only time
to listen
to the ancestors’ whisper
only time
to remember
the rehearsals of
capoeira
and
Middle Passage mutiny
only time
now
for
fighting
to the finish
© Julia Wright. All rights reserved
Julia Wright is the elder daughter of novelist Richard Wright who wrote Native Son and Black Boy. An essayist and poet, she is finishing a memoir on her family’s contributions to the abolition movement in the United States and Global South.
