Corona Collection: A collective poem, co-created internationally on Sep 13, 2020
Transforming Power Over Relations
Feels like big and small,
an imbalance
Feels like it has the potential
to transform or wreck
A spotlight on the stage
hiding the rest in darkness.
Ruled right angles, smudged, smoothed to curves.
New connections over shadows of what came before.
The stickiness of glue moves into freely flowing water,
quenching a thirst for freedom
Like a blanket
trying to suffocate a fire
but the fire will not go out.
Strength.
Like an embrace of all generations here and into the future
as a mother into being a grandmother
and then a great grandmother nimama, nogom, nicapan
A mother's talk with her child
and then a grandchild
and others yet to come
nicawasismis (my child),
nosisim (my grandchild),
nicapan (my great grandchild)
embracing hearts of love
through wakotowin (relations) and generations.
I respond by giving and protecting a space of negotiating boundaries
I respond with imagination, hope and love.
And belief.
Because I believe in humanity, in life.
We stand on higher ground, a platform,
and use words born out of spirit,
words that boom out loudly, open minds, change hearts.
Words that unite.
The morning sun covers all else.
That's a power that takes nothing away,
makes nothing less, just lights up what is there
Raise the houselights let us all be seen!
Poetry and the Pandemic, organized and co-hosted by:
Serap Brown & Budd Hall. Social Movement Poets Collective, Victoria, Canada.
Photo by Serap Brown
Poem facilitated by: waaseyaa'sin Christine Sy, Guest Poet (https://www.uvic.ca/humanities/gender/people/faculty/sychristine.php)
Poem co-created by: Linda Allison, Serap Brown, Lupe Davidson, Jee-hee Haar Farris, Jude Fransman, Budd Hall, Jeremy Loveday, Lily McKay-Carriere, David Monk, Jill Olesker, Astrid Perez Pinan, Laxmi Priya, waaseyaa'sin Christine Sy, Daniela Vance, Lee Wilson.
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