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This poem by a young woman was read during the interview with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson titled "What If We Get This Right?"
"On Another Panel About Climate, They Ask Me to Sell the Future and All I’ve Got Is a Love Poem."
“What if the future is soft and revolution is so kind that there is no end to us in sight.
“Whole cities breathe and bad luck is bested by a promise to the leaves.
“To withstand your own end is difficult.
“The future frolics about, promised to no one, as is her right.
“Rage against injustice makes the voice grow harsher yet.
“If the future leaves without us, the silence that will follow will be an unspeakable nothing.
“What if we convince her to stay?
“How rare and beautiful it is that we exist.
“What if we stun existence one more time?
“When I wake up, get out of bed, my seven year old cousin
“with her ruptured belly tags along.
“Then follows my grandmother, aunts, my other cousins
and the violent shape of their drinking water.
“The earth remembers everything,
our bodies are the color of the earth and we
are nobodies.
“Been born from so many apocalypses, what’s one more?
“Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire.
“But for what it’s worth, I’d do this again.
Gamble on humanity one hundred times over
“Commit to life unto life, as the trees fall and take us with them.
“I’d follow love into extinction.”
-- Ayisha Saddiqa
(Note: I was unable to get the font sizes to match each other in this poem which was copied from the transcript of the interview with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)
2 comments:
I love this poem so much. It is truly breathtaking and beautiful, as is the sky there.
"Been born from so many apocalypses, what's one more?" Good question.
"I'd follow love into extinction." That's the most perfect line. Thank you for that.
So very moving, let's get this right.
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