10-Year-Old Shot Three Times, but She’s Fine

Dumbfounded in hospital whites, you are picture-book
itty-bit, floundering in bleach and steel. Braids untwirl
and corkscrew, you squirm, the crater in your shoulder
spews a soft voltage. On a TV screwed into the wall
above your head, neon rollicks. A wide-eyed train
engine perfectly smokes, warbles a song about forward.

Who shot you, baby?
I don’t know. I was playing.
You didn’t see anyone?
I was playing with my friend Sharon.
I was on the swing
and she was—
Are you sure you didn’t—
No, I ain’t seen nobody but Sharon. I heard
people yelling though, and—

Each bullet repainted you against the brick, kicked
you a little sideways, made you need air differently.
You leaked something that still goldens the boulevard.
I ain’t seen nobody, I told you.
And at A. Lincoln Elementary on Washington Street,
or Jefferson Elementary on Madison Street, or Adams
Elementary just off the Eisenhower Expressway,
we gather the ingredients, if not the desire, for pathos:

an imploded homeroom, your empty seat pulsating
with drooped celebrity, the sometime counselor
underpaid and elsewhere, a harried teacher struggling
toward your full name. Anyway your grades weren’t
all that good. No need to coo or encircle anything,
no call for anyone to pull their official white fingers
through your raveled hair, no reason to introduce
the wild notion of loving you loud and regardless.

Oh, and they’ve finally located your mama, who
will soon burst in with her cut-rate cure of stammering
Jesus’ name. Beneath the bandages, your chest crawls
shut. Perky ol’ Thomas winks a bold-faced lie from
his clacking track, and your heart monitor hums
a wry tune no one will admit they’ve already heard.

Elsewhere, 23 seconds rumble again and again through
Sharon’s body. Boom, boom, she says to no one.

---Patricia Smith 

Ode to the flute

A man sings
by opening his
mouth a man
sings by opening
his lungs by
turning himself into air
a flute can
be made of a man
nothing is explained
a flute lays
on its side
and prays a wind
might enter it
and make of it
at least
a small final song

---Ross Gay

Strange Fruits

Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin' in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin' eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin' flesh

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop

--- Abel Meeropol

My Mother’s Fault

You marched with other seven-year-old girls,
Singing songs of freedom at dawn in rural Gujarat,
Believing that would shame the British and they would leave India. 

Five years later, they did. You smiled, 

When you first saw Maqbool Fida Husain’s nude sketches of Hindu goddesses, 

And laughed, 

When I told you that some people wanted to burn his art. 

‘Have those people seen any of our ancient sculptures? Those are far naughtier,’ You said.

Your voice broke, On December 6, 1992, 

As you called me at my office in Singapore, 

When they destroyed the Babri Masjid. 

‘We have just killed Gandhi again,’ you said. 

We had. Aavu te karaay koi divas (Can anyone do such a thing any time?) 

You asked, aghast, Staring at the television, 

As Hindu mobs went, house-to-house, 

Looking for Muslims to kill, 

After a train compartment in Godhra burned, 

Killing 58 Hindus in February 2002. 

You were right, each time. 

After reading what I’ve been writing over the years, 

Some folks have complained that I just don’t get it. 

I live abroad: what do I know of India? 

But I knew you; that was enough. 

And that’s why I turned out this way. 

--- Salil Tripathi

आएँगे उजले दिन ज़रूर आएँगे

आतंक सरीखी बिछी हुई हर ओर बर्फ़
है हवा कठिन, हड्डी-हड्डी को ठिठुराती
आकाश उगलता अन्धकार फिर एक बार
संशय विदीर्ण आत्मा राम की अकुलाती

होगा वह समर, अभी होगा कुछ और बार
तब कहीं मेघ ये छिन्न -भिन्न हो पाएँगे

तहखानों से निकले मोटे-मोटे चूहे
जो लाशों की बदबू फैलाते घूम रहे
हैं कुतर रहे पुरखों की सारी तस्वीरें
चीं-चीं, चिक-चिक की धूम मचाते घूम रहे

पर डरो नहीं, चूहे आखिर चूहे ही हैं
जीवन की महिमा नष्ट नहीं कर पाएँगे

यह रक्तपात यह मारकाट जो मची हुई
लोगों के दिल भरमा देने का ज़रिया है
जो अड़ा हुआ है हमें डराता रस्ते पर
लपटें लेता घनघोर आग का दरिया है

सूखे चेहरे बच्चों के उनकी तरल हँसी
हम याद रखेंगे, पार उसे कर जाएँगे

मैं नहीं तसल्ली झूठ-मूठ की देता हूँ
हर सपने के पीछे सच्चाई होती है
हर दौर कभी तो ख़त्म हुआ ही करता है
हर कठिनाई कुछ राह दिखा ही देती है

आए हैं जब चलकर इतने लाख बरस
इसके आगे भी चलते ही जाएँगे

आएँगे उजले दिन ज़रूर आएँगे

---वीरेन डंगवाल

छोड़ो कल की बातें (हम हिन्दुस्तानी 1961)

छोडो कल की बातें कल की बात पुरानी
नए दौर में लिखेंगे मिल कर नयी कहानी
हम हिन्दुस्तानी, हम हिन्दुस्तानी…
आज पुरानी जंजीरों को तोड़ चुके है
क्या देखे उस मंजिल को जो छोड़ चुके है
चाँद के दर पे जा पंहुचा है आज ज़माना
नए जगत से हम भी नाता जोड़ चुके है
नया खून है नयी उमंगें अब है नयी जवानी

हमको कितने ताजमहल है और बनाने
कितने ही अजन्ता है, हमको और सजाने
अभी पलटना है रुख कितने दरियाओ का
कितने पर्वत राहो से है आज हटाने
आओ मेहनत को अपना इमान बनाये
अपने हाथों से अपना भगवान बनाये
राम की इस धरती को, गौतम की इस भूमि को
सपनो से भी प्यारा हिंदुस्तान बनाये
नया खून है नयी उमंगें अब है नयी जवानी

दाग गुलामी का धोया है जान लुटा के…
दीप जलाये है कितने दीप बुझा के…
मिली है आज़ादी तो, इस आज़ादी को…
रखना होगा हर दुश्मन से आज बचा के…

हर जर्रा है मोती आँख उठाकर देखो
मिटटी में है सोना हाथ बढाकर देखो
सोने की ये गंगा है, चाँदी की जमुना
चाहो तो पत्थर पे धान उगाकर के देखो

नए दौर में लिखेंगे मिल कर नयी कहानी…

--- प्रेम धवन

The Hill We Climb

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade

We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is

Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it

Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time

Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one

And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect

We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us

but what stands before us

We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another

We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

---Amanda Gorman