If ever there were a month to exhibit science and poetry, it would be October, the Willem de Kooning of the calendar year.
Seasonal color changes. Sleep in air cooled through a window. Massive leaf exhibits of gravity. Hummingbirds defy the laws of aerodynamics at local blossoms before the miracle of migration. We live in science. Some voices deny it but in eleven words (Some say fire. Some say ice. But I say either will suffice). Robert Frost gives reality to climate change.
The craft of poetry is to create a picture, an idea, a truth – and to do that with as few carefully selected words as possible. A single Pop-Rock in the center of your tongue will make itself known with shivers of taste throughout your body. So poetry. So October.
Poetry insists on truth as does this month of October, a clarity that highlights months of dysfunction, lies, corruption, dangerous thugs authorized to “get the job done,” wars with no purpose or end, money grabbing, wall-to-wall lies so obvious we all detect them. I wake asking, “Why doesn’t someone do something?”
Martin Neimuller, a German minister who first supported Hitler, then opposed him and spent years in concentration camps, gives one answer: First they came for the communists. And I did not speak out. Because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the socialists. And I did not speak out. Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionist. And I did not speak out. Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews. And I did not speak out. Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak for me.
Poetry, science, and October insist that we speak out. John Lewis told us to make trouble, to make good trouble. It is not too late. We cannot be discouraged. We can encourage people to vote, starting early voting on the 15th. We can volunteer our costly gasoline to drive people to their polling places if needed. It is not too late to speak out at the ballot box. Time to make good trouble.
On October 17 we speak out with our voices, signs, bodies, at the national No Kings, Early Voting Day. This day will be huge and important in the middle of mid-term elections. These actions carry the voices of the people, the opinions about the lies, the rejection of fascism and American oligarchy, the insistence that “this land is our land.” Celebrate our voices.
Another voice from the 1940s, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Silence in the face of evil is evil itself. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
“Something” will be done, and we will do it. The magnificent golden truths of October will replace the tawdry images super-glued to the walls of the people’s house. Celebrate on the 17th and on every day, we replace the lies with truth, with action, with poetry.
Another starkly poem from the 1940s – go to YouTube, find W. H. Auden’s “Refugee Blues” read by Shelia Hancock. Close your eyes. Listen. Twice. Make a plan to vote.