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By Jonny TeklitAdded: Tuesday, November 19, 2024 / Used with permission.“Like you, I was raised in the institution of dreaming”
-Cameron Awkward-RichI wake up today—again—in a nation giddy as a nectared hummingbird at the smell of blood and immediately everything claws at me: the shower hisses against my neck like a doberman’s leash, the kitchen sink nurses a tower of filth I can’t bear to look at, winter has turned the brightest tree on my block into a snuffed chandelier. Today, the rain comes down in icy fangs. Tomorrow, the same. Nothing here escapes the physics of American violence, not even the weather. What good is a clock in a place where suffering never sets? Language makes for a lousy tourniquet, I know, but I get dressed, walk to the park, and throw my voice amongst the other protesters all the same. What else to do with the dozen kicked beehives in my chest? Beside me, a little girl no taller than my hip holds a sign and chants and it is enough to turn the institution of dreaming I was raised in into a ruin. This happens daily, this ruining, this encroaching darkness, but here, amongst these people so full-throated with their convictions toward a more abundant world, I’m rebuilt, mosaicked by their singing & tenderness & rage. The coalescing voices a hot tonic against the pessimism our nation pledges to. I walk home, on the precipice of sobs, and there’s the tree again, dark and towering, its leaves all yellow in the mud. One of its branches kisses the top of my head. A common finch assembles a nest in its canopy. It prepares for the life it knows is coming.
Listen as Jonny Teklit reads Winter Solstice.
Jonny Teklit is an award-winning poet who has had work appear in The Academy of American Poets, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. You can find a catalog of his published poems at his website.
Image Description: Jonny Teklit, a Black man with short, curly hair and a goatee, is smiling directly at the camera. He is stood in front of a bush of dark green leaves. He is wearing purple glasses and a white shirt that says the phrase "Home Video.”