ON THE MAP OF OUR HEARTS

“It is the 80th anniversary of the publication of “Black Boy”. To honor its author whose ashes were interred in 1960 in the French cemetery of Pere Lachaise, Paris, a Wright aficionado who is also an abolitionist has posted the petition this weekend to appeal to the City of Paris to at last inscribe Wright’s name on the list of renowned persons distributed to visitors who travel from all parts of the world to pay their respects. The location of my father’s grave is not to be found on the cemetery map.

Many thanks, Louise Barber for your initiative.

As Assata Shakur says, the dead are resting now, let’s take care of the living.
I am hoping our living descendants will be watching us as we honor the landmark of Richard Wright’s grave – and pass on the rites of commemoration of our ancestors’ ink.

With 146 participants in 5 days, the petition succeeded.”

you charted
the labyrinth
of the underground
but
in death
you are
on no map

longtime readers
come to pay their respects
to an exiled native son
but
find no thread
in between
the meandering tombs

flowers
are unwasted
on other graves
for want of finding you

but the heart
always knows
where you stand

JERRY WARD

When Dr Jerry Ward Jr we affectionately knew as “Doc” was buried on February 21, 2025, I wrote a poem to mark the pioneering contribution to Richard Wright scholarship by this co-founder of the Richard Wright Circle.

to Jerry Ward RIP
with all my respect and gratitude for his understanding of Richard Wright, for being the life and flame of the Richard Wright Circle and teaching the next generation to leave the inner plantation.

many of us
ached
to stand
where you were lain to rest

this mourning
by a faraway shore
i put my finger
to the wind
and heard
the eloquent silences
of your tenor bell
signifying
there was no intermittence
in your labor of love
for Richard Wright

my copy
of your introduction
to Black Boy
sheds yellowed paper crumbs
where
i see my old annotations
on your epiphanies –
your recognition of
my father’s ability to subvert
the discourse
of the dominant culture
and your reading of
the portrait of the abused Black male
as a young man

you are an ancestor too
now
and you will travel
with your biographical hero
where
your writings
will at last be untethered

you understood
how
Richard hovered
between visibility
and another world
between hunger
and yet another hunger
between darkness at noon
and the wait for daybreak
at the end of a long hard night
of a life

THE MADLEEN- THE TIP OF AN ICEBERG OF FLOTILLAS

to our youth thanking them for their principled reaction to the high seas piracy of the Madleen

Israel
had the hubris
to say
the Madleen was seized
because
she was not carrying enough aid
to matter

Israel
has forfeited
all arbitration rights
over
a genocide
of its own creation

but
as our youth says
we will call their bluff
and
we will bring in
a legion
of flotillas
that will sweep international waters
with their own pavilions
for an abundance of aid
for a finality of peace
for an absence of fear
for an unconditional love
to rebuild stone by stone
home by home
hope by hope
the land of Palestine

GAZA’S SEASONS

Remembering Amilcar Cabral who was an agronomist as well

it is Summer again
scorching Summer again
and the nylon of the tents
melts in the skin

it is foodlessness again
and again
when at dawn
hunger has not gone to sleep

it is thirst always
when
like butterflies
who in our climate change
seek the sweat of humans
children lick
their own perspiration

it is rubble
upon rubble
without interruption
as massacred homes
cry out in human pain

it is genocide still –
genocide
over and over
again –
a fifth season
where bullets rain
and bunker-buster bombs bloom red
against the white and blue
of the flag
held high by warmongers united –
the USA and Israel

but hope
Gaza’s sixth season
ever returning
is an eternal
unsilenced
Spring
when the seeds the People planted
row upon row
uprising upon uprising
pierce
Winter’s capitalist snow

AN ABSENCE OF DEER

we all know where we were and what we were doing when we learned that world war three had begun

this Sunday morning
after the Summer solstice,
a moment
i slept through,
the world i wake up to
is like all others
as i listen to the wrens trill
and climb up to the meadow
where i was told
i would see deer
if i was patient

steaming coffee in hand
i climb to my watching post
but yet again to no avail
and
a fleeting thought
tells me they will not be seen
because they may have been shot at
here
perhaps more than once

reluctantly
i return
to sit down at the table
and logging on to the internet
i find
that as i slept
the Middle East
of steadfast liberation movements
had been globally
targeted
by american bombers
and from Gaza
to Iran
the end fight for sovereign visibility
had begun

but
did the absence of deer
not let me know?

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

ON THE MAP OF OUR HEARTS | JERRY WARD | THE MADLEEN- THE TIP OF AN ICEBERG OF FLOTILLAS | GAZA’S SEASONS | AN ABSENCE OF DEER