Desmond A. Miller
September 6, 2019
5:14am
Toronto, Canada
HIWWA Day 6
Prompt:
Welcome your muse into this space, for today, with our words, we build an altar for the medicine we receive.
Response:
Audre.
Her words strike me like fire and lightning.
Going straight to the heart of my soul.
And they hold me.
Softly.
Like water and all of the tenderness that element brings.
There is so much in her writing and life work that fulfills and sustains me.
Holds me down.
It is a blessing to be able to access and receive her work.
It is hard to imagine
the vivid picture
that a poet and writer can make
with only letters on a page.
And the feelings she can evoke with scribbles of ink.
It really is magic.
Or, perhaps, medicine.
And it really is about feeling.
That’s what Mama Lorde reminded us.
That it is part of the battle,
the war
to preserve or rebuild a life on this planet worth living.
As a poet, and artist,
it is essential,
primordial
to incite people to feel.
To become un-numb.
To touch that part of themselves that is alive and on fire
with the passion to live
and concomitant commitment
to support more life,
less unnecessary death,
less gratuitous and superfluous violence.
We need more life and feeling at this time in our existence
when so much around us
perpetuates a drive towards death and feelings of emptiness.
We need more feeling
to have information
about the impacts of our actions.
And this is why I love Audre.
Because she reminds me how essential it is for my survival to be able to feel.