MORNING CALM
(For the women of Vietnam, patiently threading together their
share, and more, of Third World struggle & solidarity)
the eerie bright light
that shatters morning
dawn is the illumination
of bombs
death dropping like
acid rain from unseen
obscene clouds,
a deadly dew
dispensed by invisible
high flying arms
and so began the days
when Nguyen was new,
barely born between naplam runs,
anti-personnel explosives spewing
sinister silverous spikes
with thorny barbs which savagely
struck and cut, searing
into innocent flesh
embedding shrapnel into pliant
pre-pubescent sides, into
soft kidneys and slender
bamboo colored thighs like
gleaming iron fish hooks
piercing a jaw, lancing a gill
or slicing an eye
but who cares now
that the war was lost so
long ago
the high-tech cameras
no longer transmit onto tv sets
into our living rooms
the pain, the unsmelt
stench of flaming bodies or
the barely believable screech
of street side summary executions
as bullets shattered the skulls
of black haired suspected cong
so who cares now
the killers are back home
here in america
where we do not see nor feel
the innumerable silent shells
waiting to explode
upward maiming a peasant’s crouch
as ox drawn plow contacts
nor do we cross
oranged wastelands where
nothing green can grow
who cares, now that
the dear johns and joes
are gone, to the victors
have gone the spoilt
who remembers those naked little girls
running down the highway their mouths
silently stretched open in pain
those little girls who are
no longer girls but women now
women whose wombs may never conceive
women who can not dance without pain
women whose scars will not heal
women who can not give birth without surgery
women whose ears can not hear subtle string music
women who can not remember ever having rest
filled sleep during long quiet summer
nights nor sense the tenderness of a lover’s
cautious touch caressing what’s left of a breast
who cares?
as you struggle in your homeland
a place bombed almost back
“into the stone age”
patiently reconstructing human beings
out of the survivors of war
a prostitute becomes a nurse
an orphan a teacher
a cripple becomes an administrator
and a blind woman an interpreter
Nguyen, it is the work of you
and people like you
which gives soft/strong certainty
to worldwide efforts at
social reconstruction
Nguyen, knowing you helps us
know that we are more
than our past,
less than our future,
neither animals nor gods
but oppressed people who can grasp
tomorrow’s dawns and create new days
from bomb cratered yesterdays
in the face of pessimism
your graceful smile
thaws our war hardened hearts
i salute
you who continue, all of you
who inspire hope, whose recovery
encourages all of us victims
to rise and fly like phoenix
ascending out of occidental ashes
i salute
you who move as in a morning sun
rising side by side, always rising,
never stopping, always rising, softly,
always, certainly, softly,
as in a morning
calm
—kalamu ya salaam
____________________________
i do not usually explain my poetry but this post is special. the context of the poem is important to me. ‘morning calm’ was written in the late seventies/early eighties and originally conceived as part of a collection of poetry to complement the essays i wrote and published under the title of ‘our women keep our skies from falling.’
the plan was to publish a small book with both the poetry and the essays together but, as with so much in life, that never came to pass.
i served in the u.s. army 1965 - 1968, the viet nam years but i did electronic nuclear missle repair in korea. korea was a major awakening for me about the international aspects of our struggle. i learned a lot from the women in korea, most of whom were prostitutes who lived in a small village just outside the gates of our mountain top base.
i came out of the army fired up and ready to rumble, seeking far more than civil rights. by 1974 i was a delegate to the sixth pan-african conference in dar es salaam, tanzania. the chinese were already working in tanzania. does anyone remember the tan-zam railroad and the effort to break apartheid’s economic strangle hold on central and southern africa?
three or so years later, i led a delegation to the people’s republic of china. twenty educators and activists from around the united states spent over two weeks traveling throughout china and engaging in serious ideological sessions with chinese comrades. again, my consciousness was raised.
the more i learned about the world and the more people i met who were struggling for self-determination, self-defense, and self-respect, the more i understood that our struggle was truly a global struggle and not simply a racial struggle, or even mainly a pan-african struggle. eventually, i moved away from advocating nationalism as a solution to the issues our people faced. i also became very, very clear that sexism and attendant ills (such as homophobia and heterosexism) was a serious issue that had to be fought both internally and externally.
‘morning calm’ is then a reflection of my global consciousness and of my anti-sexism advocacy. in 2010, far, far removed from when i wrote this poem i teach vietnamese students in high school. a few of our students were born in viet nam, most of them deal in various ways with the issues of assimilation and retaining their culture, especially their language. this poem was written for the women who are today the grandparents, aunts, and perhaps a few mothers of our students…
one other thing, as i have said numerous times, i use music as my literary model. the rhythms and internal structure of this poem are based on john coltrane’s version of ‘softly, as in a morning sunrise.’
a luta continua (the struggle continues)…
—kys
2nd Place: Zafer Lehimler, of Turkey, for his “Reggae Star” poster
3rd Place: Rosario Nocera, of Italy, for his “Riddim is Freedom” design
