(“I can hear it but I can’t play it.”—John Coltrane)
How to find words
for a child
swept from the arms of his mother
in a flood fueled by poison
flooded into the atmosphere
by a system beyond compassion or reason.
How to find words
for beautiful young women
targeted, tortured, murdered,
trafficked across seas,
across borders
by a system that markets their bodies as plunder.
How to find words
for children at the bottom
of the bottom of mines
carrying loads of stones
to power phones that power a system
that thrives on their blood and bones.
How to find words
for the waste of imperial wars,
bodies buried in rubble,
fires sucking oxygen from air,
fields that will nevermore yield food or flowers
because a system calculates death-cost in dollars.
How to find words
to say, did we come down out of trees,
trek across continents,
make art in caves, calendars of stones,
fill the skies with our songs─ for this,
for a system that grinds our humanity to coins?
How to find words
to dream a world worth fighting for, a future
where humans, with love and respect for all creatures,
further embark on our journey
for knowledge and wonder and art
from cell to star to infinity.
- How To Find Words - December 11, 2024