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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.

 

 

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