Remember Them
I am squid ink.
Did you forget?
My rage is fading fears
into the well like rainwater
against the peonies
of a morning’s pause.
I can’t be bothered anymore.
Did you forget?
My oily residue
coats blank black dark
with expectation and reward,
the poet’s minaret
a sharpened quill
to write the sky,
unworthy prayers into night.
Did you forget?
I’d be blood if I were you,
regretting children lost
to your feigned reckless disregard.
But I am camouflage,
the thoughtful spy
ever drifting deep among
the things we fear
til all that’s left of me is ink,
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And ink
Remembers long.
-cassandra
The events of the past three weeks — three mass shootings — harmed the warp and weft of our collective life. The denials of responsibility, refusal to allow some sort of control, all these things have driven me to poetry.
For my part, I was working at Nichols Middle School in Canton, MS, the year that the Pearl shootings happened. I remember the hushed tones of the Assistant Principal, walking the halls to let all of the teachers know what was happening, so that we were kept aware of the situation. We had friends, and some had relatives who worked or went to school there. We were just a district away from the horror. We were teaching. I walked back into my classroom clear about only one thing. I would not be signing a new contract. I was a single mother of a 2 year old child and I knew that she needed me more than they did.
It’s been DECADES. It’s still happening. I am having trouble remembering all the children, teachers, staff who’ve died in the service of aggression. I want to remember them.
