NaPoWriMo 2025 - Day 1

There will be an associated podcast recording once I have enough time to re-listen to it for any audio issues and publish it. It better explains the context of how the poem came to me and offers an unpolished first performance of it. For now, I wrote a day 1 poem – off to a good start, I'd say!

I. Omission

We embed meaning in time, and
lose it to the flow of history. It
must be unearthed to remind
us what our bodies instinctively perform.
We bop our heads, tap our feet, and
lean in to the cellist's bow strokes;
giving way to gravity,
giving way to history,
resuscitating the movement in music.

II. Rest

Bach. Mozart. Handel.
John Lewis. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
A man filibusters for a record 25 hours today
because they will not stop dismantling mere decades of progress
in a many centuries long line of injustice for the benefit of a few
so full of benefits they know not what to do with
save for take more, grab more and
maybe, just maybe, we have opened a new chapter of consciousness in this nation
and can let these names we invoke so often lay to rest.

III. Kayamba

I watch these performers in church shake the dense heat
that has settled for those who missed the first mass service.
The kayamba slices the air and
where we expect to hear whistling and whisks, a thump of seeds crackles the air.
It hits the way rollercoasters do – with great anticipation of the next turn,
a rise and rewriting of the canon.