Split This Rock with Me - Part 3

I missed many excellent workshops on Saturday morning in favor of having some special time with my sister who lives in the DC area. I needed this time with her as I don’t see her nearly often enough, but I know I sacrificed some excellent learning opportunities with the DC Walking Tours which featured Walt Whitman’s Washington, “Harlem” Renaissance in Washington, and GLBT Writers of Washington. “Writing Isn’t Lonely” and “Poet as Oracle” were certainly enticing workshop titles led by poets such as Susan Tichy and Coleman Barks. I didn’t join up until later in the afternoon when I enjoyed “Word Warriors–Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution.” Again, time felt too short when the high school open mic began just as soon as this crew of women warriors finished speaking.

(Photo: Mendy at Bus Boys & Poets)

The high school open mic was just what some of us older poets needed to remind us that, yes, there are young ones waiting and willing to carry on the torch of peace, freedom, and poetry. Every poem was so vivid and fresh, every verse a lifeline slung out from one generation to another. Here is another chapter in the book of Revelations that Split this Rock opened for me: We need a high school/ youth open mic in my town of Fayetteville, AR. I came back with a renewed dedication to seek out the young poets and get them to come to Omni’s Peace Open Mic and to HOWL, the open mic I host in celebration of women’s voices. I stood to read as the room’s OLDEST teen, getting a by from host Regie Cabico because the subject matter of my poem, “Education,” was autobiographical, having to do with coming of age in a newly integrated junior high school in Jackson, MS in 1968. I felt right at home in a room full of teens, but then I would. I wanted to say it over and over, “You, Young People, the world can’t change without you!” People, these kids are the Future!

(Photo: Path on the train)

Path and I took the train one stop to Bell Multicultural HS to watch a lineup of poets you had to see to believe. Swept away, I was, in their words and the movements that accompanied their words. Their hands were like well-formed birds shaping their verses before they flew from the stage. Often, their bodies did a little dance or swayed with the rhythms of their lines. Some couldn’t stand still long enough to photograph. These poets were on the move. This was a bus stop, a way station on the road to more activism, and they moved us right along with them. We sat at the feet of poets such as Coleman Barks, Belle Waring, Dennis Brutus, Kenneth Carroll, Mark Doty, Carolyn Forche, and Alica Ostriker.

(Photo: Poet Mark Doty)

They taught us with metaphor, yea, even with parables. Can I get a witness? We practiced the sermon on the mount, in their presence, in their words:
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Blessed are those who mourn.
Blessed are the meek and humble,
those who hunger and thirst after righteousness (feed them).
Blessed are the merciful (for everybody needs a little mercy now),
the pure in heart,
the peacemakers (persecuted for all the right reasons).
Blessed are the poets
who say the words, paint the pictures, report to the public
and tell the truth whenever, wherever they can;
who never, ever, ever, give up....

We left our cathedral feeling like we were the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world and we are being called to return to our homes as poets and prophets, place our cities on hills so they can see again, become like potato chip people, yes, that salty, which imbues others with a thirst for truth and justice. And we read our poems to one another at the open mic, on the sidewalks, in the subway stations, on the trains, and all the way back to our rooms.

(Photo: Poet and Organizer Sarah Browning)

We awoke on Easter Sunday with one mission, to get to Busboys and Poets in order to hear the panel made up of DC Poets Against the War and to learn how they were inspired and able to put this event together. We left our baggage at the State Plaza Hotel (which we loved for its old-fashioned charm, roominess, and incredibly helpful staff) and headed once again to our favorite home away from home. The DC Poets were terrific as we heard them read some of their poetry and talk about the fundamentals of organizing Split This Rock. They discussed the importance of putting together their book of poems against torture, “Cut Loose The Body.” What amazing people, good as their words; serving, organizing, inspiring.

(Photo: Poet Naomi Ayala)

Our last trip took us back the way we came to the Cafritz Conference Center on the George Washington University campus. Here we were blessed and fired by the words of Naomi Ayala and Galway Kinnell to begin our pilgrimage to the White House, our final stop. We gathered outside the center on the sidewalk. We picked up signs with quotes by various poets and peace activists. We hung them around our necks on string or waved them in the air as we walked, without a word, to Lafayette Park across the street from the White House.

(Photo: Poet Galway Kinnell)

(Photo: Easter Tree)

Here then a preacher’s kid turned poet and peace activist finds new meaning in an Old Story once again. I loved this silent march, this mishmash of someone else’s Easter ritual into my own. How quiet it must have been that early morning in the land where war never seems to cease, when the disciples went to the cemetery looking for what they could not know they’d find. There were bird singings and the sound of sandals (sneakers) flapping against stone. A white tree bloomed atop a tall building, and for the moment it caught the corner of my eye I imagined the resurrected Christ, a holy ghost, a dove. The wind tunneled the streets and alleyways as we walked to the big white sepulcher with its guards and gates. Sure enough, centurions rode up on horseback and brought their dogs to search for bombs. But we had come in peace and it seemed they would be disappointed not to be able to send us away. For they and we all knew that words are stronger than swords, and last longer, too.

(Photo: DC Street Poet)

People, we wanted that stone to roll away--far, far away and not come back. We wanted that rock to roll, to set free the spirit of compassion, of love and truth and wisdom. But it wouldn’t budge and so with the hammers of our voices and twelve strikes each, we began to split that rock ourselves. Each of the 300 or so poets there pronounced a line of twelve words into the microphone directed at the White House, and we created a Cento with quotes that would ring in the air long after our departure. We split the rock and we are splitting it still. Peacework is all about splitting rocks instead of hairs. And the work, my friends, is never done. Won’t you come and split this rock with me?

(Photo: Naomi, Path, Joe and Jeff)