MORNING EDITION NPR interviews our own poet laureate Marjory Wentworth tomorrow (Wed) morning! Be sure to tune in and listen to the discussion of her poem ONE BOAT, ONE RIVER. Below is the poem in full. Enjoy! One River, One Boat Because our history is a knot we try to unravel, while others try to tighten it, we tire easily and fray the cords that bind us. The cord is a slow moving river, spiraling across the land in a succession of S’s, splintering near the sea. Picture us all, crowded onto a boat at the last bend in the river: watch children stepping off the school bus, parents late for work, grandparents fishing for favorite memories, teachers tapping their desks with red pens, firemen suiting up to save us, nurses making rounds, baristas grinding coffee beans, dockworkers unloading apartment size containers of computers and toys from factories across the sea. Every morning a different veteran stands at the base of the bridge holding a cardboard sign with misspelled words and an empty cup. In fields at daybreak, rows of migrant farm workers standing on ladders, break open iced peach blossoms; their breath rising and resting above the frozen fields like clouds. A jonboat drifts down the river. Inside, a small boy lies on his back; hand laced behind his head, he watches stars fade from the sky and dreams. Consider the prophet John, calling us from the edge of the wilderness to name the harm that has been done, to make it plain, and enter the river and rise. It is not about asking for forgiveness. It is not about bowing our heads in shame; because it all begins and ends here: while workers unearth trenches at Gadsden’s Wharf, where 100,000 Africans were imprisoned within brick walls awaiting auction, death, or worse. Where the dead were thrown into the water, and the river clogged with corpses has kept centuries of silence. It is time to gather at the water’s edge, and toss wreaths into this watery grave. And it is time to praise the judge who cleared George Stinney’s name, seventy years after the fact, we honor him; we pray. Here, where the Confederate flag still flies beside the Statehouse, haunted by our past, conflicted about the future; at the heart of it, we are at war with ourselves huddled together on this boat handed down to us – stuck at the last bend of a wide river splintering near the sea.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 21:08:34 +0000
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