Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Henry Howard
51 years old
Before the savage murder of Neda Agha-Soltan during the Iranian election protests, I had never paid more than lip service to the Iranian freedom movement. Now I am proud to stand with these gentle people, from the Westwood Federal Building to Azadi Square in Tehran!
A Voice Silenced, A People Awakened
A VOICE SILENCED, A PEOPLE AWAKENED
Sometimes the strongest voice Is scarcely raised above a whisper, Quiet as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings, A gentle movement of the air That makes a sound no thunder can suppress.
On your way to the rally at Freedom Square, Perhaps you had been taught long ago how to talk to God: So softly only God can hear you, But in the lesson you have taught us with your dying, The whole world can hear you now.
You did not join in fiery chants Or calls for revolution, Choosing instead To let your ballot be your voice.
But when your vote was trampled By those who cling to power at any cost, You voted with your feet Until a sniper’s bullet laid bare your heart.
“I’m burning! I’m burning!” you cried, With the only words that millions heard you speak. But the moment that silenced your voice forever Set a fire of hope that is burning still.
Before you marched, Only those closest to you Knew your name. Yet within hours of your death, You became a global household name.
How strange that they silenced you, Neda, Whose very name Means “Voice.” From the silence of the grave, You have become “The Voice of Iran.”
Neda—even your name is gentle. It rolls off the tongue With a playful softness Reflected in the Internet pictures of your face.
At 26, you were just beginning to find your voice, But your death made the world hear The legions of the voiceless, And brought Iran, So far away, so misunderstood, Into our own backyards.
The State will always use The cruelest and crudest weapons To shoot down what can never be silenced: The primal cry of every soul To be counted as equal.
Shadowy men, faceless and unnamed, Blew a hole in your heart And broke the heart of a nation, But the State will never learn: When power confronts humanity, One voice may be silenced But a people awakens, And never silenced again.
And the Bones Came Together (For Dennis Brutus, 1924-2009)
AND THE BONES CAME TOGETHER (For Dennis Brutus, 1924-2009)
Apartheid. Apart-hate. “Apart-ness.” Not just separate; truly apart. Not just different; that implies equality. Wrestle with this one: It means truly dwelling in different worlds, Separate and wholly unequal. Isolated. Shunned. Apart. Hated. Apart-hate.
Ubuntu. An ancient tribal word, A thread of hope connecting the past With South Africa’s future. The opposite of “apart-hate:” Ubuntu, seeking forgiveness Through shared humanity. Togetherness. There are no enemies in ubuntu; only dialogue.
Ubuntu: an ancient concept That seems novel for today: Confrontation without condemnation. The injured get to tell their whole story; The offenders must tell the whole truth. Reparations are made; forgiveness is attained. The spears of war, once dipped in blood, Lie cast and broken on the ground, Replaced by spears of hope, dipped in tears of pardon.
Truth and reconciliation: an uncertain process. A coming-together to bind the wounds From fifty years of apart-hate. Replacing a national doctrine of “Separate us!” With the unifying concept of simply: “Us.” Transforming a nation through ubuntu: you-me-you. Us.
The coming-together was painful. Beneath the tent of meeting in Cape Town, The world’s first gathering of victims and perpetrators, The architects of apart-ness And the survivors of apart-hate, Shared 21,000 nightmares And 21,000 broken hearts, black and white, in common.
Day upon day the witnesses poured their souls Upon the weary hearts of people burdened With the task of playing God: Who should be punished, And who given amnesty? And what does amnesty mean When only God forgives, But people cannot?
The testimony was hard to bear. There were the tales of electric shocks That fried the genitals of farmers and teachers, Incinerating their manhood Beneath shreds of smoldering, now-flacid skin.
There was the woman who came every day, Caressing a jar with her son’s preserved heart, The only remnant of him That the bomb bequeathed her.
There were colored victims and Indians, And occasional white victims too, Like the man whose family outing was shattered By a well-placed mine. With tears no one could dry, he told the panel How he had frantically searched for his wife’s missing leg, A precious memento of a long love now torn asunder.
There was a lot of crying in those five years, But no one tried to stop it, For who can stop the heart from breaking? There was a gavel, but no one dared to pound it or shout for order. There is a limit to what can be endured in silence, And in the grief of a nation Nothing is silent, except for fools.
There were tales of riots, And of the sjamboks police used to suppress them, The long rubber whips that flayed the skin Like old paint on crumbling walls.
There were the endless roll calls Of those who died in police custody, Murders comfortingly white-washed As “Suicide by hanging,” Or “Shot while trying to escape.”
The death squads of the Vlakpaas, the “Third Force,” At last shared their secrets, too, Before those who demanded answers As a force for justice.
Men in neat white coats described laboratories, Where doctors of death Dipped cigarettes in anthrax, laced chocolates with cyanide, And tested germs designed to kill only blacks, The science of insanity in the name of apart-hate.
Yet there was reconciliation, too. A little boy, who hadn’t spoken Since his parents were shot before his eyes, Hugged the sobbing officer who killed them, And spoke volumes In the healing embrace of his ubuntu: I forgive you, So we can become you-me-you. Us.
And who could forget the mother of a young American woman, A volunteer stoned and stabbed by those too desperate to know That she was a friend of the people, Embracing the mother of one of her killers, embracing ubuntu?
In a country so wounded by apart-hate, Even the bones of the victims lay scattered In graves marked only by the loneliness of apart-ness. Yet slowly the seeds of ubuntu took root, Flowers of you-me-you replacing the stubborn weeds of separation.
The wind spread the news across the veld, The grasses gave up their secrets, And the ashes of blacks and whites, Indians and coloreds Merged in a single shade of gray.
The unmarked graves of the murdered at Sharpeville And the tombs of Hector Petersen, Matthew Goniwe, Steve Biko, Ruth First, And thousands unknown Gave up their dead, And a nation once dedicated to being worlds apart Took the first steps towards forgiveness, A rainbow of people finally shook hands, And the bones came together.
