Angels of earth and agate, silver splinters
Battling death, gliding and swooping, skimming the seas when
Chinese warriors Jiu Jin and Ding Ling, their wings, their wings
Dive and wash, dine with Owen Dodson and Tillie Olsen, American,
Effervescence of words dotting breastplates, dotting their bodies in
Finery of hungry ghosts of concubines and blacksmiths who
Galvanize streams and rivers, haw flakes red and glistening
In their mouths, teeth for
Justice against random, against planned
Killings of children, women and men,
Lovers and enemies
Moving horsehair and boar brushes, pens, ink, twigs, fingertips
Over plains and mountains with Audre Lorde and Mahmoud Darwish,
Pueblos and zocalos, hamlets and forests, groves of olive trees
Questions and answers, solutions for migrations of
Radical change, what say the dead Yannis Ritsos, Kim Chi Ha never
Surrendering, Nawal El Saadawi and Pat Parker and Karen Brodine
Together and apart, atoms and multiverse, fireworks
Underwater dragons, pterodactyls, our human realm. What say the
Vindicated, the erased, the silenced champions, buskers, cartographers
When Margaret Walker wrote Jubilee, when Gloria Anzaldua, Al Robles
Xylophoned language and deed, when Clara Fraser met Marx, Akhmatova
Yes to angels, when Siu Sin Far, Bulosan, Baldwin, Okada, Yamamoto awaken
Zzz, zzz and sing.
Nellie Wong
November 11, 2022
© 2022 Nellie Wong
(Read at the PEN Oakland Awards when I received The Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award 2022, December 3, 2022)
The PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Awards, named for the late poet and Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, were created to provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community.