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From:  L Dewey <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To:  Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]>
To:  [log in to unmask]
Subject:  Re: [MUSEUM-L] For Our New York Friends on List
Date:  Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:47:43 -0400
>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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