Closing Down Poetry Month

Did you carry a poem in your pocket this month? Subscribe to the Poem-A-Day podcast or purchase the latest book by the Young People’s Poet Laureate, Carol Boston Weatherford?

I find so much satisfaction knowing that we celebrate poetry in this month where spring sometimes fights with winter to bring on warmer, lengthening days so that nature, only through hope, can bloom. And I say that as someone who doesn’t always put a lot of energy into this particular art form. I cannot deny that poetry gives me hope.

Even though I’ve ignored most of the greats, I’ve maintained a fondness for the works of Nikki Giovanni and for that reason, as poetry month is winding down, I want to close it down with one of her poems. We always need a good poem, I think now we can use one that reminds us that what seems like a social and political setback isn’t new; progress always seems to be one step forward and two steps back.

When you think about it, there’s a community of people who may not know each other and who certainly can’t see each other but are reading this little poem and they’re being connected by the Giovanni’s words. Poetry is powerful, just like the April winds.

We Go On

We go on

Because there is this history uncelebrated…
unacknowledged…
unwanted…
That takes place each Sunday
            in church
Each Saturday
            at the juke joint
And every day of the week
When we try to make a house
A home

No one wants to understand
The faith it takes to be
A mother
A grandmother
A pillar of a distressed community

No one wants to understand
The courage it takes to be
A deacon
A janitor
A miner in the crumbling mines

Yet neither our fate
Nor our Faith
Can reside in the hands
Of those who don’t care
Of those who let greed be their God
Of those who tear down our meeting halls
Burn down our churches
Laugh at our steadfastness
And say “Oh, I’m sorry”
When caught in the web of lies
we go on answering
            a trumpet call
Following
            the living savior
Hoping
            for a better tomorrow

We go on because of
The strength of our soldiers
The righteousness of our battle
The need of the saved to prevail over the damned

We go on

Because we have good men and women
Good boys and girls
Good people
Who want this history
Ohers would destroy
To live

“We Go On” in Acolytes. HarperCollins, 2007.

Filed under: Uncategorized