Crystallize

A word after a word is power.
– Margaret Atwood

Could crystals and metaphors save us from corruption and destruction? Preserve our earth and freedoms? Could they be conduits to reclaim our power? Just maybe –

To escape the record heat wave (radiating warming) immerse yourself in The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel – not the finale of the TV series. Originally titled Offred, the name of the central character suggests loss of identity, a chattel (of-Fred) and a religious sacrifice (offered). Set in the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic dictatorship where the Constitution and Congress no longer exist, with the population shrinking due to a toxic environment, the elite monopolize the valuables and conscript the remaining fertile females. Once brainwashed in the re-education facility to understand they have no real rights, the Handmaids will be protected if they conform. The controlling Aunts, true believers, are opportunists and sadists complicit in the regime. Are you iced yet? 

Atwood lived in West Berlin when she began the novel in 1984, the city still encircled by the Berlin Wall. Influenced by visits behind the Iron Curtain she witnessed the silences, the fatigue of being spied on – and the stories. “This used to belong to…but then they disappeared.” Steeped in the consciousness of WW II she “knew that established orders could vanish overnight.” Over thirty years later, her dystopian vision sears our worst fears into reality.

In turbulent times, spiritual practices emerge. While you may scoff at the image of a fortune-teller gazing into a crystal ball, the art of scrying (from the word descry meaning to perceive) has a long history. The practice dates back thousands of years in mystical and religious traditions. The Celtic Druids, associated with Pagan religions, were the first to use crystal (beryl balls) to divine the future and omens. During the Renaissance, the crystal ball, stigmatized by Christianity, found favor with mysticism, regarded as a branch of science. The Ancient Japanese called on a sphere of crystal quartz for power and wisdom.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.
– Margaret Atwood

During periods of political crisis, poetry surges. An art form used at protests and rallies from the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements to the Vietnam War, the Iraq War – to racial oppression, discrimination and police violence against African-Americans, immigration policy, terrorism, gun control, sexual harrassment, environmental issues and more. Poets expose grim truths, call out inhumane forces, raise consciousness and unite. “That all these walls oppression builds / Will have to go!” (Langston Hughes) Poets empower by expression – from Maya Angelou’s metaphor of the caged bird to Harryette Mullen’s wordplay for serious matters, from confrontational lines delivered by Amiri Baraka to the erasure poem “Declaration” from Tracy K. Smith, our Poet Laureate, now in her second term. “Poetry,” she says allows her to “bring voice to the unsayable, the untranslatable.”

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.
– Amiri Baraka

As a catalyst for this post, I culled the two images, bracketing the crystals, from a journey to communist Cuba before the diplomatic easing of tensions and sanctions – again in jeopardy. I wandered the streets of Havana frozen in time with American 50s’ cars and shops filled with big cigars. Ah, the 1950s, another revolution, when Margaret Sanger researched the first birth control pill. Now over six decades later, the fate of women’s reproductive rights (including Roe V. Wade) hangs suspended on a hook, draped with a black judicial robe. I cannot conceive of a woman who would not want to govern her own body. What kind of dystopia is this?

In the words of Nigerian poet Ben Okri, “Politics is the art of the possible: creativity is the art of the impossible.” Let the impossible unfurl – stanza by stanza – with the voices of protest poets Langston Hughes, Denise Levertov, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Maya Angelou, Claude McKay, Heather McHugh, Harryette Mullen, Yusef Komeunyakaa, James Baldwin, Alice Notley, Jill McDonough, Nikki Giovanni, Etheridge Knight, Amiri Baraka, Tracy Smith, Sophie Collins, Maggie Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Monica Youn, Robert Pinsky, Rita Dove, Jane Hirshfield and others. (selections below)

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.
– Rita Dove

In the course of creating this post, I made several attempts to find my way. Distracted, I swerved and hit a wall –­ my words and phrases fractured. Unlike the poets, I failed to distill. So I got back up and laid my crystals in the moonlight. Call it scrying, call it divining, or call it a metaphor. Ancient Egyptians believed lapis lazuli promoted enlightenment and the Romans used crystals as talismans and amulets. The Greeks rubbed hematite on soldiers before battle and the Ancient Sumerians included crystals in magic formulas. I confess I’m not a crystal guru, although I have a few I whisper to. It doesn’t take an omnidirectional crystal ball to see we’re headed straight for Gilead. Anything can vanish overnight – disappear in morning light. The shades all down.

You can’t say we haven’t been warned – by the planet and poets, by the horrors of history, and by Atwood’s cautionary tale. So gather your up your iolite and onyx and resist with every particle of energy. Don’t outsource your life force. Spring cages of cruelty with the sharpness of a slice of quartz – dissolve walls with metaphor. Create waves of ethical vibrations for future generations. And always, always – crystallize!

Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.
– Audre Lorde

Crystallize – make or become clear (Antonyms – decompose, disintegrate, break down or decay)

 

DECLARATION
by Tracy K. Smith

He has
sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people
He has plundered our —
ravaged our —
destroyed the lives of our —
taking away our —
abolishing our most valuable —
and altering fundamentally the Forms of our —

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble terms:…

 

ON THE FIFTH DAY
By Jane Hirshfield

On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.

The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
and the ones who worked for the farmers
were silenced,
and the ones who worked for the bees.

Someone, from deep in the Badlands,
began posting facts.

The facts were told not to speak
and were taken away.
The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.

Now it was only the rivers
that spoke of the rivers,
and only the wind that spoke of its bees,

while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees
continued to move toward their fruit.

The silence spoke loudly of silence,
and the rivers kept speaking,
of rivers, of boulders and air.

In gravity, earless and tongueless,
the untested rivers kept speaking.

Bus drivers, shelf stockers,
code writers, machinists, accountants,
lab techs, cellists kept speaking.

They spoke, the fifth day,
of silence.

 

SMALL SHOES
By Maggie Smith

If there are fewer stars now
than when I was a child,

I can’t say
which are missing,
who was the last to see them.

Is it not a crime
unless we call it a crime?

It is difficult to document
a disappearance,
a boat full of stars

capsized.
Stars lying in the sand

face-down,
wearing small shoes.
Add that to the report:

some of the stars washed up
in small shoes.

 

CAGED BIRD
By Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom. 

 

WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE
By Harryette Mullen

We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives.
We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions.
We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts.
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.

Your ticket does not guarantee that we will honor your reservations.
In order to facilitate our procedures, please limit your carrying on.
Before taking off, please extinguish all smoldering resentments.

If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way.
In the event of a loss, you’d better look out for yourself.
Your insurance was cancelled because we can no longer handle
your frightful claims. Our handlers lost your luggage and we
are unable to find the key to your legal case.

You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile.
You are not presumed to be innocent if the police
have reason to suspect you are carrying a concealed wallet.
It’s not our fault you were born wearing a gang color.
It is not our obligation to inform you of your rights.

Step aside, please, while our officer inspects your bad attitude.
You have no rights we are bound to respect.
Please remain calm, or we can’t be held responsible
for what happens to you.

 

I LOOK AT THE WORLD
By Langston Hughes

I look at the world
From awakening eyes in a black face—
And this is what I see:
This fenced-off narrow space
Assigned to me.

I look then at the silly walls
Through dark eyes in a dark face—
And this is what I know:
That all these walls oppression builds
Will have to go!

I look at my own body
With eyes no longer blind—
And I see that my own hands can make
The world that’s in my mind.
Then let us hurry, comrades,
The road to find.