1/21/21 Workshop – A Song by Sekou Sundiata

Forsaken Sea – Sekou Sundiata

Always go in low tide

                        High tide comes

Always go in low tide

                        High tide comes

We always go it seems

We always go to the ocean

We always go to the ocean at low tide.

 

We could walk

We could walk deep

We could walk deep into the sea and never be

in over our heads.

 

We do not believe

We do not believe

We do not believe

that drowning is for us.

 

High tide comes out of the water the same way

for the last billion years.

There is nothing new.

 

We know when to swim, and when to wait.

We know when to swim, and when to wait.

The waves come in and go back out

                        For the last billion years

                        The ocean still emotional

                        Singing in our ears

                         Always go in

                        Always go in low tide, high tide comes

                        Always go in low tide, high tide comes

                       

 High tide comes out of the water the same way for the last billion years.

There is nothing new.

We know when to swim and when to wait.

In the car

In the car the road

In the car the road murmurs beneath the wheels

The ocean, so emotional, in our ears.

 

We seek without looking

The smallest token, passes and settles

into what music is about, music is about.

 

You could say

You could say we are dancing

And from this one thing we know 10 things

From this one thing we know 10 things

 

We always go in low tide

When high tide comes

 

We always go to the ocean

We always go to the ocean at low tide.

We see without looking at the music the water makes

                                                We know when to swim and we know when to wait

                                                We always go in low tide, high tide comes

                                                Always go at low tide, high tide comes

                                                We do not believe

We do not believe

We do not believe

We do not believe

That drowning is for us.

 

High tide comes out of the water

The same way for the last billion years.

 

Yes, you could say, you could say we are dancing

And from this one thing, we know 10 things.

 

We always go in low tide

High tide comes.

Reflective writing prompt: We do not believe…..

1/13/21 Workshop – A Poem by Noor Hindi

Breaking [News] by Noor Hindi

We’ll wake up, Sunday morning, and read the paper. Read each other. Become
consumers
of each other’s stories, a desperate reaching
for another body’s warmth—its words buoying us through a world. We carry
graveyards on our backs and I’m holding a lightning bug
hostage in one hand, its light dimming in the warmth
of  my fist, and in the other, a pen, to document its death. Isn’t that terrible?
I’ll ask you, shutting my fist once more.
In interviews, I frame my subject’s stories through a lens to make them digestible
to consumers.
I  become a machine. A transfer of information. They  become a plea for empathy,
an oversaturation of feelings we’ll fail at transforming into action.
What’s lost is incalculable.
           And at the end of  summer, the swimming pools will be gutted of  water.
          And it’ll be impossible to swim.
Reflective writing prompt: Write about something lost