Children, Listen by Roger Reeves

Children, Listen
Roger Reeves

             It turns out however that I was deeply
Mistaken about the end of the world
             The body in flames will not be the body
In flames but just a house fire ignored
             The black sails of that solitary burning
Boat rubbing along the legs of lovers
             Flung into a Roman sky by a carousel
The lovers too sick in their love
             To notice a man drenched in fire on a porch
Or a child aflame mistaken for a dog
             Mistaken for a child running to tell of a bomb
That did not knock before it entered
             In Gaza with its glad tidings of abundant joy
In Kazimierz a god is weeping
             In a window one golden hand raised
Above his head as if he’s slipped
             On the slick rag of the future our human
Kindnesses unremarkable as the flies
             Rubbing their legs together while standing
On a slice of cantaloupe Children
             You were never meant to be human
You must be the grass
             You must grow wildly over the graves

SELECTED BY ZOë FAY-STINDT

This poem has been tenderly guiding me for many years now, insisting, reminding: no more apocalypse narratives. No turning away from the fire. No turning away from genocide. The “end times” won’t arrive in some massive eruption, but bit by bit, as we let the violences of colonial onslaught slowly calcify our hearts, as we turn to ignore the burning. As we let them erase the proof of loving, of Gaza’s “glad tidings of abundant joy.”

There is enough room in you to let it all in, Roger urges. He reminds us: we must be the living, the greening. We were made to do this loving, ancient work: Children, listen… You must be the grass / You must grow wildly over the graves.

ABOUT ZOë FAY-STINDT

Zoë Fay-Stindt is a queer, land-based poet and essayist. Raised by both the swamps of eastern Carolina and the Hérault river of Languedoc, France, they are a sixth generation settler currently residing on unceded Cherokee lands in what is colonially known as Asheville, North Carolina. Their work has been Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets nominated, featured or forthcoming in places such as Southern Humanities, Ninth Letter, VIDA, Muzzle, Terrain, and Poet Lore, and gathered into a chapbook, Bird Body, winner of Cordella Press’ inaugural Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize.