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<b>Moment of Silence<br>
</b>by EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep 2002<br>
<br>
Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me<br>
In a moment of silence<br>
In honour of those who died in the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon<br>
last September 11th.<br>
<br>
I would also like to ask you<br>
To offer up a moment of silence<br>
For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared,<br>
tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,<br>
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the US<br>
<br>
And if I could just add one more thing...<br>
<br>
A full day of silence<br>
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands
of<br>
US-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation. Six months of<br>
silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children,
who<br>
have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year
US<br>
embargo against the country.<br>
<br>
Before I begin this poem,<br>
<br>
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South
Africa,<br>
Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.<br>
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,<br>
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete,
steel,<br>
earth and skin<br>
And the survivors went on as if alive.<br>
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people, not
a<br>
war - for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning
fuel,<br>
their relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.<br>
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a
secret<br>
war .... ssssshhhhh.... Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn
that<br>
they are dead.<br>
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,<br>
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have piled up
and<br>
slipped off our tongues.<br>
<br>
Before I begin this poem.<br>
<br>
An hour of silence for El Salvador ...<br>
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...<br>
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...<br>
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.<br>
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas<br>
25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their<br>
graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the
sky.<br>
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their
remains.<br>
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore<br>
trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...<br>
<br>
100 years of silence...<br>
<br>
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of<br>
right here,<br>
Whose land and lives were stolen,<br>
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek,<br>
Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.<br>
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator
of<br>
our consciousness ...<br>
<br>
So you want a moment of silence?<br>
And we are all left speechless<br>
Our tongues snatched from our mouths<br>
Our eyes stapled shut<br>
A moment of silence<br>
And the poets have all been laid to rest<br>
The drums disintegrating into dust.<br>
<br>
Before I begin this poem,<br>
You want a moment of silence<br>
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same<br>
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.<br>
Not like it always has been.<br>
<br>
Because this is not a 9/11 poem.<br>
This is a 9/10 poem,<br>
It is a 9/9 poem,<br>
A 9/8 poem,<br>
A 9/7 poem<br>
This is a 1492 poem.<br>
<br>
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.<br>
And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:<br>
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.<br>
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977.<br>
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New<br>
York, 1971.<br>
<br>
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.<br>
<br>
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes<br>
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told<br>
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks<br>
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek
ignored.<br>
This is a poem for interrupting this program.<br>
<br>
And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?<br>
We could give you lifetimes of empty:<br>
The unmarked graves<br>
The lost languages<br>
The uprooted trees and histories<br>
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children<br>
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever<br>
Or just long enough to hunger,<br>
For the dust to bury us<br>
And you would still ask us<br>
For more of our silence.<br>
<br>
If you want a moment of silence<br>
Then stop the oil pumps<br>
Turn off the engines and the televisions<br>
Sink the cruise ships<br>
Crash the stock markets<br>
Unplug the marquee lights,<br>
Delete the instant messages,<br>
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.<br>
<br>
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of
Taco<br>
Bell,<br>
And pay the workers for wages lost.<br>
Tear down the liquor stores,<br>
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and
the<br>
Playboys.<br>
<br>
If you want a moment of silence,<br>
Then take it<br>
On Super Bowl Sunday,<br>
The Fourth of July<br>
During Dayton's 13 hour sale<br>
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful<br>
people have gathered.<br>
<br>
You want a moment of silence<br>
Then take it NOW,<br>
Before this poem begins.<br>
Here, in the echo of my voice,<br>
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,<br>
In the space between bodies in embrace,<br>
Here is your silence.<br>
Take it.<br>
But take it all... Don't cut in line.<br>
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.<br>
But we,<br>
Tonight we will keep right on singing...<br>
For our dead.<br><br>
<br><br>
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