A Moment of Silence for 9/11

By Emmanuel Ortiz, 9/11/02

Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to
join me in a moment of silence in honor of those who
died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last
September 11th.

I would also like to ask you to offer up 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 U.S.

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 Viet Nam
- 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 in their living
years.

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, 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 unconsciousness ...
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 rest
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 99 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 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


Or 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.

by Emmanuel Ortiz 9.11.02

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