Written by Grant Shimmin
Tonight I’ll get to log off my computer and go home
the news neatly packaged for tomorrow’s readers
my biggest worry about any work I’ve done
the possibility of a typo, a misplaced fact
a reader complaint, in writing, perhaps a protracted exchange
Tonight I won’t be working in a tent
where the heat of my body and those labouring beside me
betrays my presence to those who seek to extinguish it
so they can continue to eliminate lives deemed expendable
with less worry of their deeds being brought into the light
I know the argument against the sticks and stones analogy
that words can indeed be harmful, and it’s true
but being cancelled by the screamers
in the kangaroo court of public opinion
versus vaporisation from the face of the Earth
is hardly a valid comparison
so thank God for the indelible memorableness of courage
Tomorrow morning I will walk under branches
porcelain with blossoms in the coming light
as thrushes on all sides call down the day
their songs of joy sucking the night’s cobwebs from my brain
and coffee performing the final cleanse
preparing me to properly consider
and prioritise the tasks the day will bring
Tomorrow morning I will not wake
if indeed I have had the chance to sleep
to the silence of the permanent absence of birdsong
bombed from the place I call home
to the sounds of anguished hunger, and anguished terror
of starvation and elimination, of the depraved desire
to scour the bloodied soil of my existence
and rebuild on the dust of my bones
Tomorrow morning I will wake
.
Grant Shimmin is a South African-born writer resident in Aotearoa, New Zealand, whose go-to poetic themes are humanity, justice, and the natural world. A career journalist and Best of the Net nominee, he has work published in a range of journals around the globe.