COUNTER-ECOLOGY OF GENOCIDE

Thousands of Palestinians are still lost under tons of Gaza rubble.

truckloads
of rubble
uncleaned of human remains
are driven
to the Gaza beach
no waves can wash
off bloodstains –
this haunted rubble is
to build the new artificial port
that will bring in
the Trojan horse
of USAID

nothing lost
all to be gained –
the modus operandi
of genocide everywhere
is the same

i am reminded
of how the nazis
would recycle
the hair
the teeth
the skin
the property
of my forebears

nothing lost
all to be gained –
the modus operandi
of genocide everywhere
is the same

i am reminded
of how U.S. tanks and other weapons
left over from
the Iraq and Afghanistan wars
were recuperated
to militarize the police
in the belly of the beast

alongside counterinsurgency
genocide has perfected
a practice
of counterecology

in Gaza
the slow moving trucks
filled with sacred bones
and memories
clinging to the rubble
approach the beach
guarded by U.S defense contractors
and Israeli kapos
and empty
layers
and
layers
of ruined homes
and fossilized cries
on the ground
to process
blood money cement
for their imperialist enterprise

the People of Gaza
watch on
unable to process
layers
upon
layers
of grief
into
the cement of their minds

LAYERS AND LAYERS OF ABOLITIONIST MOURNING

there are many forms
of mourning
in our abolitionist movement

there are the physical losses
of freedom fighters
who were at our side
and have left us
to reside
in a painless space –
Kamau Becktemba
Viola Plummer
Toby Elmer
Ralph Poynter
and
so many others

beyond the memorials
have we found
a secular sacred ritual
to keep these unchained ancestors
by our side ?

beyond the steroids
do we understand
how Mama Wadiya’s transition
has affected Mumia’s skin
and
still reverberates skin-deep
through our coalition ?

then,
as Jacqueline says,
another form of deep seated mourning
we have failed to complete
is that of challenges
we set ourselves
such as
writing thousands of love letters
to move the so called sisterly gavel
of Judge Lucretia Clemons
who sent Mumia
back to slow death row

how much time did we spend
x-raying
why our Black Love
failed to melt her Blackface heart
and understanding
that Black class division
is a major contradiction
in our very midst

also there is
a mourning I am steeped in :
that of projects
or committees born of vital urgency
then aborted
without communication
debriefing
or a single meeting
leaving silence
as a memorial
for a labor of love

there are many interconnected forms
of mourning
in our abolitionist movement –
maybe
it is still time to process them
for we have an infinity of chances
of finding
that beyond the sadness and the pain
and the human flaws
there is growth

IF I COULD HOLD BACK TIME

if i could hold back time

if i could place my fingers
and jam
tomorrow’s broken dam

if i could freeze
the fast food minutes

if i could unnerve
my watch

if i could know
which sustaining weeds
my garden needs

if i could ask the sun
to do a re-run

if i could make peace
with the night
to come

if i could ask
the ancestors
to teach me
to slow down

if i could hold back time
and peacefully tame
this deadline

THE CEMENT OF THE PEOPLE’S RESISTANCE

on
Easter
Friday
Saturday
and Sunday
here in the belly of the beast
a succession of storms
darkened the sky
making it crash
on my spirits
making it torture the trees
making it flood
the grasses
where festive eggs were hidden
and floated away

privileged children
feeling deprived of their treasured treats
watched
the hurricane winds
peering peevishly
through streaming windows –
little did they know
that the children of Gaza
are deprived
even during Ramadan
and starve endlessly
day and night

but
today
Easter Monday
the storms have blown through
and the sky is such a piercing blue
and so pristine
that i feel
i can see all the way to Palestine

and today
in the warm sunshine
of egg hunts renewed
the humility of poetry
demands
that i rewrite
the last stanza
of
the lines i wrote
yesterday
under the somber clouds
calling it :
the counter-ecology of genocide

today
i cross out :

“the people of Gaza
watch on
unable to process
layers
upon
layers
of grief
into the cement
of their minds”

for
i can see as clearly
as the return
of the Spring
that :

“the people of Gaza
watch on
able to process
layers
upon
layers
of grief
into the cement
of their Resistance”

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

COUNTER-ECOLOGY OF GENOCIDE | LAYERS AND LAYERS OF ABOLITIONIST MOURNING | IF I COULD HOLD BACK TIME | THE CEMENT OF THE PEOPLE’S RESISTANCE

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright