Before I begin this poem

Catholic New Times, May 4, 2003 by Emmanuel Ortiz

Before I begin this poem

   Before I start this poem,
   I'd like to ask you to join me
   in a moment of silence
   in honour of those who died
   in the World Trade Center
   and the Pentagon
   on 9/11 2001
   I would also like to ask you
   a moment of silence
   for all of those who have been
   harassed, imprisoned, disappeared,
   tortured, raped, or killed
   in retaliation for those strikes,
   for the victims in both
   Afghanistan and the US.
   And if I could just add one more thing ...
   a full day of silence
   for the tens of thousands of Palestinians
   who have died at the hands of
   U.S.-backed Israeli forces
   over decades of occupation.
   Six months of silence
   for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,
   mostly children, who have died of
   malnourishment or starvation
   as a result of an 11-year U.S. embargo
   against the country.

   Before I begin this poem--two
   months of silence
   for the Blacks under Apartheid
   in South Africa,
   where homeland security
   made them aliens
   in their own country.

   Nine months of silence
   for the dead in Hiroshima
   and Nagasaki, where death rained
   down and peeled back
   every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin
   and the survivors went on as if alive.

   A year of silence
   for the millions of dead
   in Vietnam--a people, not a war-for
   those who know a thing or two
   about the scent of burning fuel,
   their relatives' bones buried in it,
   their babies born of it.

   A year of silence
   for the dead in Cambodia and Laos,
   victims of a secret war ... ssssshhhhh ...
   Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn
   that they are dead.
   Two months of silence
   for the decades of dead
   in Colombia, whose names,
   like the corpses they once represented,
   have piled up and slipped off
   our tongues.

   Before I begin this poem,
   an hour of silence for El Salvador ...
   an afternoon of silence
   for Nicaragua ...
   two days of silence
   for the Guetmaltecos ...
   none of whom ever knew
   a moment of peace
   45 seconds of silence
   for the 45 dead
   at Acteal, Chiapas
   25 years of silence
   for the hundred million Africans
   who found their graves
   far deeper in the ocean
   than any building could
   poke into the sky.
   There will be no DNA testing
   or dental records
   to identify their remains.
   And for those who were
   strung and swung
   from the heights of
   sycamore trees
   in the south, the north,
   the east, and the west ...

   100 years of silence ...
   for the hundreds of millions of
   indigenous peoples
   from this half of right here,
   whose land and lives were stolen,
   in postcard-perfect plots
   like Pine Ridge,
   Wounded Knee,
   Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers.
   or the Trail of Tears.
   Names now reduced
   to innocuous magnetic poetry
   on the refrigerator
   of our consciousness..

   So you want a moment of silence?
   And we are all left speechless
   our tongues snatched from our mouths
   our eyes stapled shut
   A moment of silence
   and the poets have all been laid to test
   the drums disintegrating into dust

   Before I begin this poem,
   You want a moment of silence
   You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
   and the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.
   Not like it always has been
   because this is not a 9/11 poem
   This is a 9/10 poem,
   It is a 9/9 poem,
   A 9/8 poem,
   A 9/7 poem
   This is a 1492 poem.
   This is a poem about
   what causes poems like this
   to be written
   And if this is a 9/11 poem, then
   This is a September 11th poem
   for Chile, 1971
   This is a September 12th poem
   for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977
   This is a September 13th poem
   for the brothers at Attica Prison,
   New York, 1971.
   This is a September 14th poem
   for Somalia, 1992.
   This is a poem
   for every date that falls
   to the ground in ashes
   This is a poem for the 110 stories
   that were never told
   The 110 stories that history
   chose not to write in textbooks
   The 110 stories that CNN, BBC,
   The New York Times and Newsweek ignored
   This is a poem
   for interrupting this program.

   And still you want
   a moment of silence
   for your dead?
   We could give you
   lifetimes of empty--the
   unmarked graves
   the lost languages
   the uprooted trees and histories
   the dead stares on the faces
   of nameless children

   Before I start this poem
   We could be silent forever
   or just long enough to hunger,
   for the dust to bury us
   And you would still ask us
   for more of our silence.
   If you want a moment of silence
   then stop the oil pumps
   turn off the engines and the televisions
   sink the cruise ships
   crash the stock markets
   unplug the marquee lights,
   delete the instant messages,
   derail the trains, the light rail transit
   If you want a moment of silence,
   put a brick through
   the window of Taco Bell,
   and pay the workers for wages lost,
   tear down the liquor stores,
   the townhouses, the White Houses,
   the jailhouses, the Penthouses and
   the Playboys.

   If you want a moment of silence,
   then take it
   on Super Bowl Sunday,
   the Fourth of July
   during Dayton's 13 hour sale
   of the next time your white guilt
   fills the room where my beautiful
   people have gathered.
   You want a moment of silence?
   Then take it Now,
   before this poem begins.

   Here, in the echo of my voice,
   in the pause between goosesteps of the second hand
   in the space
   between bodies in embrace,
   Here is your silence.
   Take it.
   but take it all
   Don't cut in line.

   Let your silence begin
   at the beginning of crime. But we,
   tonight we will keep right on singing
   for our dead.

   "A time has come when silence is betrayal. That
   time is now. "--Martin Luther King Jr.