RESPONSE: A WOMEN’S PANTOUM
This was put together from a collection of emails exchanged by a group of older women after the synagogue shooting.
Let us be rivulets forming in the rain—
not a road that horrors walk upon.
We melt, we sink, our face slides off our bones.
We have no words, only tears and silent prayer.
We cannot become the road the horrors walk upon.
Remember: the magnitude of solidarity is a resurrection of massacred faith.
There are no words, only tears and silent prayer
for that temple, the store, the church, another school.
Solidarity is a kind of resurrection of faith
in rain on the windows and little girls playing
around a temple, a grocery store, a church, a school.
Let us not collapse to the ground. Look—
rain on the windows and little girls playing,
yellow chrysanthemums in the grey light.
We must not collapse to the ground;
we must move vibrant through this year of dying.
Yellow chrysanthemums shine in the gray light,
a flock of crows flies against the gray sky,
vibrant, through the dying of the year
the way a leaf is picked up by the wind.
A flock of crows against the gray sky
melts and sinks. We rise on our bones
the way leaves are picked up by the wind,
the way rivulets form in the rain.
Like this:
Like Loading...