Transcriber: Josephine Wilson Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
Because I'm an etymologist and because words matter,
because language is a culture-keeper,
because it is a bridge or a burial,
a tourniquet or a noose, depending on the user and the usage,
I enter every conversation etymologically.
And since etymology is to study the origin of a word,
its history, if you will,
and since history is fastened to politics and philosophy,
I enter every conversation listening for the origin story
of both the speaker and that which is spoken.
So the theme is 'rise'.
The definition of 'rise' is to move upward,
to come to the top of a thing, to increase in value, to advance,
to climb, to exert oneself, to meet a challenge,
to take part in a rebellion,
to increase in volume.
Now let's talk about the meaning of 'rise'.
Because definition is but a commentary on meaning.
To rise means to travel past that which is beneath you.
To rise means to return from the dead.
See that's that good poetry.
To rise is to transcend the grave,
and I've been crawling out of graves my whole life.
I heard that if you say 'drowning', you better mean it.
Promise the wind what is left of your bones, say 'bones'.
The erected totems pitched soundlessly in the dark wetlands of your body
will want a proper burial promise.
A proper burial.
Not premature or heavy, but thick and ceremonious
like the way you laughed with friends you eventually buried,
the ones whose names still dangle from all of your unfinished poems.
Say 'danger' and know it is an unremarkable road,
a howling place you ruined your dresses in.
Say 'your grandmother's hands',
and watch your fledgling song lift out and out of the grave,
an apparition of hymnals and unsuccessful curses.
Say 'childhood' and catch each devestation by the throat.
Say 'stepfather' until you do not need to say it anymore,
until it is a limp and needless word, until it is just one more thing to bury.
Say 'memory' and do not run from the meal,
eat what you can, be full by morning.
Say 'rise' and spend your flesh on it.
Pull the slow tendrils of girlishness
from each padlocked room you made a home in.
Pirouette the sun if you feel like it.
Let the sky be what it is, soft, persistant halo,
ready to turn mistakes to hummingbirds.
Say 'wings', say 'amen'.
Say 'miracle', say 'possible'.
Say 'stretch', say 'reach', say 'try', say 'win'.
Say 'I fell down, but I got up'.
Say 'I borrow from the lineage of Lazarus',
say 'there are miracles only I can perform'.
Say 'the only thing that is relevant about any crucifiction
is the resurrection after'.
Say 'I fairly sizzle with zeal and enthusiasm
to do the things that can only be done by me'.
Say that, say this.
Say 'The body is the algebraic precision of prayer'.
Say 'God' if it suits you, and hear your own name echoing back.
Do you remember what it felt like to be born?
To suffer the body for the sake of a dance; say 'dance' then.
Say 'never again' or say 'forever'
and then plant your seeds, bury your dead,
sing what songs you know, tell the earth how plural you are,
how fertile the soil of your heart.
Say 'heart', dear heart.
Red, red heart,
has there ever been anything that could keep you from rising,
again and again and again?