Read & Redact
Before you read the article itself
Before you discard this because the title, the issue, the image, the website
Before you dismiss that it’s not from your usual circle
Before you other the words, the images, the message
Before you judge the mere vessel it was directed to
Before your entire life-work of existence smoothly
Seamlessly drives you away
Before you don’t pause to draw breath;
To inhale and exhale the same air between earth and sky we do.
The comments following the article itself are instructive
In the ways of learning that we have become accustomed to
We repeat the easy words, phrases, examples, arguments
We repeat the names, dates, times and places
Of the slaughtered and sanctified ancestors
Their Voices cannonised into solid gold
And we, their descendents and adherents
Become the masters of polishing their plaques
In a highly structured form of debate
That immediately leads us away
From the thing that we are wrestling with
It’s a slimy creature that twists and shape shifts
It tells us simple truths and wisdom that has endured through the ages
It tells us unassailable facts and it tells us that there are many ways
To add this to that to get, the same unassailable outcome
Always the other invaded this place on that date
Before then, it was another other that ruled
That she should go back from whence she came
But I come from across the street, homie
Then we dance the remembrance of the slaughters
Recall the pogroms, the long nights and knives
That we are an island of equality in a sea of oppression
That our women are not caged under veils of impotence
That our news does not include jailing the journalists
In the next line of the fandango it’s a step to Apartheid
And immediately we all die on this hill of abominations
In successive waves of commentary until
G-d and Shaitan themselves are drawn into and take up the battle
The music is playing but we can’t hear anymore
She is reminded that only with
Fear, blood and large guided bombs
She exists
In the words of Anti-Liberal
‘You mean being a coward and a traitor is something that must be supported?’
‘Give us a break goya’
‘Yes you are a traitor’
‘now get the f#ck out of [redacted]’
So read sisters and brothers of every scrap of paper
Of every book, post and update
Click on every link
See, hear, read, process, question
But only yourself and the snug fit of the wisdoms
You, we, me, us all hold dear and sanctify
Each time we don’t pause to see, not what we are shown
But what is kept hidden, by showing this, not that
Search everywhere, but search deepest inside
Yourself for what you know about you
Shorn of your lib or dem, pro or anti
Shorn of the nafs, this creator of the other
Be the discomfort you feel
Be the fecund soil of a field sown with hope
Seed it also with love for
It is watered with the blood of the ancestors
A seamless diversity of being reaching
To things unknown to the news and views and codes and guilds
Unknown to the makers of markets and options and returns
Unknown to the experts of every hue that drag us deeper into other
Unknown to the caging of our minds and beings
Reach for that space where you feel your pain tear into you
Reach for making whole every little trauma of mind, body and spirit
Stand firm, sit comfortably with the unease
Luxuriate in your breaking apart
Seek your mirror ala Shams and Rumi
Dig deep into Adichie’s love poem, Americanah
Slake your thirst in more possibility of Okri’s, Starbook
Be now the people of Gibran’s, Orphalese
Before you rage against, now remake only yourself
Carry along your flaws and imperfections
Deep into the stardust and light
Emptying yourself of the detritus of knowing
Freeing your mind from it’s well worn paths
Going deeper into cool water, not boiling in rage
Humbling your self to your highest self
Intrinsically connected to our shared destiny
Joyously moving in new ways to
Know a more rounded imperfect self
Longing displaced with relish
Mourning with marking stage changes
If Saramago’s Blindness is our present of crumbling Temples
Then his Seeing is our mirror of a future
We hold past and future in our present beings
We must needs choose a path for making a better history
Of this age and it’s sparkling crown of white privilege.
© Jesh Baker for Oppi Stoep. All rights reserved. 2024
