A New Way to Say I love You

 Black

At the entrance

to the 

  black   hole

of the world’s colossus 

    fear and rage

has slammed the door

     to the way

I call my own name

 

ask  

do not misjudge 

this   dark

hued

skin

 

stop

 

we can’t go back

to basic black

or white anymore

now that these nights

are so vast – amassed

with the rattle and hum

of revenge not 

appeased and

 warnings  repeated 

that our dark dreams

 have been interrupted

 by the laughter 

 of the unforgiven.

 

red 

  eyed

we   

  rise stubborn with this pain –  

 that kindles hunger for an

  eternal flame to light the

  way through this ashen mourning

  where streams of I love yous

  never having been said enough,

  force their way through the troubled

  mist of horizons dawning

  perfect in their shameless light.

 

white

 

breath 

crushed

disappeared  by

engineers of fear and

galvanized

hate –

 

induced  

judgements  

leveled on monolithic nations 

make them learn to wait like the

oppressed who 

process 

questions 

raisedby the suspicious and

touch the

unwieldy visage of

willful

x – tinction of

yesterday’s

zenith.

 

blue 

 

prayers    

  spin  like dervishes   

 into  shields  which   

wrap  around children   

  too young to know

   about being wounded  

   by an desperate enemy

and then left behind.

black 

night still comes quick 

with autumn’s preparing

winter’s deep resting

place – quiet in the long

    descending flight

  of light

 

white  breath

feeds red

love the

blue  flame

 of  tikkun olam  burns.

 

Linda Joy Burke

October 5, 2001

 

*tikkun olam repair the world

 

This poem originally appeared in the anthology,

9/11 project - September Eleven Maryland Voices – 2002 Baltimore Writers’ Alliance www.the911project.org

 

    "Children, everybody, here's what to do during war:  In  a time of destruction, create something.  A poem. A parade. A community. A school. A vow. A moral principle. One peaceful  moment. "
- Maxine Hong Kingston