Watch PAGES perform his poem above.
After the bombs have gone
and the mothers have wailed
and the land has been returned
We remember love
the fission of a heart
like a large accelerator
We remember joy
laughter made of colliding particles
blooming in a withering field
We remember hope
once the size of a whisper
that grew into a song
The ones we sung over a fire
the hymns that glitter
in our blood as we take a lover’s hand
and dance until the moon is a jazzed spirit
We remember the purpose of an atom
is to become everything and nothing both at once.
An atom sp/its and the world ends
or begins. So many little worlds that grow up
knowing they always mattered
Universes without the chemistry of a bruise,
or hatred, or the disease of corporate greed
and the weeping of stars
I remember home in the village
ocean-stretched hands and salted tongues
who turned a dollar into a miracle
and made a pot of stew even for the ghosts
They too were nuclear physicists
unfolding big bangs from their pockets
too broke to think about the heat
But they knew blast as a first language because
no one came to save them from
their winter full of ash
I remember a future
where we are more than just weapons
or our hunger for war
We are the kiss long before the detonation
intertwined fingers in protest to any deadening cloud
we are the stone throwers and those who chose the sea
Spirits fueled by the reactor in their chest
pumping freedom and a kind god in their veins
I remember the hood, the projects, the deserts, the strip
the poisoned well, the borders, and the blood
How there were always bombs and shattered glass
the toxic waste of laws
and children without water
I remember the fallout
and generations radiating with sadness
I remember the rage
it was both mushroom cloud and fertile garden
where I learned to make sturdy vines of my hands
wrapped around the ones I love
with smiles like a warm meal
The ones who are undead and unwavering
I remember energy never really dies
it becomes memory and fruit
it becomes highways and tall trees
it becomes prayer and technology
it becomes medicine and starlight
It becomes a moment we remember
and a future worth living for.
Copyright © 2024, PAGES Matam. This work is made available under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).