I Got Kin by Hafiz
Plant
So that your own heart
Will grow.
Love
So God will think,
“Ahhhhhh,
I got kin in that body!
I should start inviting that soul over
For coffee and
Rolls.”
Sing
Because this is a food
Our starving world
Needs.
Laugh
Because that is the purest
Sound.
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
I fell in love with a North Korean
by falling asleep on his shoulder
in a South Korean subway.
Later, perhaps because of that,
I misread the Arabic word gurfa,
not as the amount of water
that can be held in one hand,
but as the amount of wonder.
As if one’s entire history could be
measured one handful at a time.
As if we knew another way.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,—
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!
Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.
In Grahamstown’s Public Library
I read that we are towers of cells,
trillions and trillions of sedulous cells,
each one more complex than a town.
I turned the page, once more amazed
at life’s deep daring and finesse.
The library clock ticked on, unfazed.
I learned that vast encyclopaedias
were racked inside a chromosome
and microbes moleculed the past.
In some a filament whirred round,
I read with disbelief, then shock,
more than a hundred thousand times
with each slow ticking of that clock.
Beside a book, a phone-screen lit.
Home time, it said. I stood intent
to live each day with greater awe,
yet walking out that reading room
I saw grey rain gust in the door
and anxious faces hurrying past
and huddled beggars, as before
Soak up the sun
Affirm life’s magic
Be graceful in the wind
Stand tall after a storm
Feel refreshed after it rains
Grow strong without notice
Be prepared for each season
Provide shelter to strangers
Hang tough through a cold spell
Emerge renewed at the first signs of spring
Stay deeply rooted while reaching for the sky
Be still long enough to
hear your own leaves rustling.
all the best moments of my life
have happened underwater,
and you are afraid to swim.
Did you know that the last fatal
shark attack in New Jersey was in 1926,
when your mother’s mother
was a glint in her mother’s eye?
You do not need to be so afraid.
The ocean is my strongest mother.
When I was ten, I lost one gold earring
to a foamy open-mouthed wave.
Half of my grandpa’s last gift.
My favorite aunt told me that she thought
a big, beautiful rainbow fish was probably
wearing it like a lip ring. Sometimes,
I still wear my half.
Sometimes, I park outside his house,
look at the stranger’s car in his driveway,
and I can smell the oatmeal cookies
and salty hair.
“Have you ever loved something so much
that you would give it the prettiest piece of you?”
I asked.
You did not understand the question.
My hair needs washing
I am oily at the root
Petulant
With bad waves
Relax
Bring your ass
To your ankles
Ian says
I can’t
I scream
I can’t
I stop being happy
Just like that
On account of my hair
Looking crazy
That and my belly
Showing out
When I’m alone here
It’s just me
The weights are alone
I don’t challenge their aloneness
I watch the Netflix
I can’t stop Netflix
It fucks the poetry out
All the harlequin dramas
The he waiting for seasons
For the her
The me
Watching the them back when
It’s not you
It’s me they say
I say like shit I haven’t been
Operating as someone else
I’ve been exactly me
Coming and going
Like I got it like that
I don’t
Every part of me wants to
Bring my ass
To the machinery that confounds
That is change
The not knowing how to change
Half in love
With the body
Not knowing how
Witness by Ariana Brown
you said you held a gun first / then a girl / & both begged for mercy / & you are afraid / of your own
body / of the hands that are their own haunting / the coal / bursting through / your glowing skin / black
/ as the morning sun / born dying / the girl / writhing on the bed / the boys behind you / chanting / your
rebirth as a bullet / your reflection / something like your father’s / all the good air / sucked out of your
head / legacy of black pain / avenged / by teaching black boys /
to kill / & you want to know / if you are a monster / for being alive / when you cannot remember / the boy you were
some men / teach their sons to fish / some beat their wives / & say nothing / while their sons / inherit
their fists /
if i tell you / i love you / in the light & dark / what i mean is / there is such a thing as forgiveness / i mean
/ some battles / we are born into / wearing / uniforms of blood / & concrete / that
the children we were / almost never survive / that we must forgive the nightmares / their bloody fingers
/ if i tell you / i love your hands / what i mean is / blessed boy / I am not afraid of you
Compassion Camp 