Grave-lorn – a poem for Richard Wright’s 117 birthday | The capacity for joy – a Gaza poem | Gaza’s arks | Who are the blind ones?

GRAVE-LORN – A POEM FOR RICHARD WRIGHT’S 117 BIRTHDAY

Greetings Folks,
September 4th was the 117th birthday of my father.
I wrote the poem below for him.

This year is also the 80th year of the publication of Black Boy – more about that soon.
Peace,

Julia

 

to my children, Ama and Malcolm.
to my grandchidren, Maxime and Mathilde and their little ones.

In memory of Richard, Ellen and Rachel all buried at Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France.

In tribute to the courage and resistance of Grandpa Wilson, Richard’s maternal grandfather and a runaway slave

of Silas Hoskins, Richard’s uncle who was lynched in Elaine, Arkansas in 1916 and whose memorial soil was
remitted to the National Lynching Museum by the youth descending from the survivors of the 1919 Race
Massacre there

of Maggie Wilson, Richard’s aunt and Silas Hoskins’ widow who believed enough in Richard to leave her meagre earnings to my sister and me

and most of all
of Ella, Richard’s crippled and ailing mother who taught Richard to feed on imagination when there was no food

May their graves be found and flowered

 

we are a grave-lorn people
torn as we are
from the unknown watery tombs
of our decimated ancestors
whose bones
are unflowered
in the Middle Passage

we are a grave-lorn people
torn as we are
from the killing fields
of our inner Middle Passage
where
the lynched anonymous
rest as they can
under the tarmac
of screeching roads
and
sprawling strip malls
desecrating
our loved ones lost
under a land that once was ours

i am grave-lorn
for the exiled resting places
in Paris
of Richard, Ellen and Rachel –
yet as Amilcar Cabral says
each dawn

wherever I am in the world
it is enough to summon them
with the ink of my words
for them to smile
and take my hand
and let me know
distance
is a figment
of amnesia
and
silence

 

nous sommes un peuple coupé de nos sépultures
arrachés comme nous le sommes
aux tombes aquatiques inconnues
de nos ancêtres décimés
dont les os
ne sont pas fleuris
dans le Middle Passage

Nous sommes un peuple coupé de nos sépultures
arrachés que nous sommes
aux champs de la mort
de notre Middle Passage intérieur
où
les anonymes lynchés
reposent tant bien que mal
sous le bitume
des routes bruyantes
et
des centres commerciaux tentaculaires
profanant
nos proches disparus
sous une terre
qui était autrefois la nôtre

je suis hors d’atteinte
des lieux de repos
à Paris
de Richard, Ellen et Rachel –
mais comme Amilcar Cabral l’a dit
à chaque aube
ou que je sois dans le vaste monde
il me suffit de les invoquer
avec l’encre de mes mots
pour qu’ils sourient
et me prennent la main
et me fassent comprendre
que la distance
est une invention
de l’amnésie
et
du silence

(c) Julia Wright.. September 4, 2025, Richard Wright’s 117th birthday. All Rights Reserved.

 

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THE CAPACITY FOR JOY – A GAZA POEM

The capacity for joy of the Palestinian People has inspired the idea of a regular blog I will try to post on our Mumia listservs to share the positive news – our symbolic bags of flour – to counter the daily dark news.

his joy
is infinitely greater
than the bag of flour
he almost
cannot carry
but
finds the strength
to dance with

his joy
is infectious
as the soundtrack
reverberates with the laughter
of famished families

his joy
brightens
his incredulous eyes

his joy
rings out
under the bombs
perhaps for the last time

(c) Julia Wright. September 6th 2025. All Rights Reserved to Susan Abulhawa’s playgroundsforpalestine.org

 

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GAZA’S ARKS

“What happens to a dream deferred
does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun? (…)”
Langston Hughes

i dreamed
it would rain bombs
on Gaza City
for 40 days
and 40 nights

a flotilla of Gaza Arks
has sailed
with
our collective dream
no longer deferred

if i place a shriveled raisin
on those waves
it will become a vineyard

i can see
the children of Gaza
who have reached the beach –
they have raised their fingers to the wind
pushing the boats
ashore,
and they have sent their kites
to welcome
those they have been waiting so long for

(c) Julia Wright September 6, 2025. All Rights Reserved to Susan Abulhawa’s playgroundsforpalestine.org

 

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WHO ARE THE BLIND ONES?

if we do not protest
Mumia will go physically blind
but who are those whose blindness
is beyond surgery?

the corporate press
is paid to be blind
to Mumia’s upcoming blindness

the white terror-ists
are blind to the fact
that each time they attack us
they offer us a platform
to speak back

the corrupt police state
cannot see the house
they live in
is made of glass

Judge Lucretia Clemons
and the DA
threw away the spectacles
that would have enabled them
to read
the writing on Truth’s wall

so who are the blind ones?

those whose dark spiritless vision
the diagnosis of History
has no further treatment for

(c) Julia Wright. September 8, 2025. All Rights Reserved.