7/30/2019 Glenis Redmond Poster for John Hopkins MS 11x17

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Hold Themfor Hopkins Middle School

Some children need bigger embraces,

strong, long arms stretching around their worlds:

homes and classrooms surrounded by barbed wire

with not even a semblance of a playground

where they wander shell-shocked and pockmarked

by the bullets and bombs that bombard them daily.

You enter their halls as a poetto address their psychic wounds in 60 short minutes.

Your arms have never felt so short,

your reach never so slight.

But, you come willing and limber

to t yourself around the all they carry.

You witness the action ick that is their lives.

You see the trajectory of the bullets

as they spit words like concentrated M-16 re

and you see it as posttraumatic backlash.

This is how they deal.

You could duck, cover and run

like many have done before, but

You hold steady and ow like the natural waterfallsyou sprung from, the ones that grew you into the

oak you are now.

Sturdy in this stance and uninching,

you draw lines weaving the threads that connect

your trajectory from shack with outhouse

to home to college to the center of your poetic self.

In this stitch, you show you are still perched on a

Mothers Love.

You know maybe your poverties dont match,

you in your home-stitched dress past,

anked by your fathers awed Air Force ight

around the world,

but you realize in your lack,

you were given a gift: eyes to see.

You got poems to hand them, but they dont seem like much.

But what else you got to give?

You chant rhythmic poems extolling church ladies in hats.

the students catch the hip-hop/gospel, R&B and the blues

in your song

and for a moment, they are not there:

the place upon the ceiling where they go.

They are here with you, tucked safely in the palm

of your hand, away from the streets

and countless stories of wars.You hold them.

So close you see who they really are: wide-eyed and ve,

not middle schoolers posturing behind

I dont care masks.

What you see is pure and innocent.

You reign them in with a box,

drawn on a white board.

You tell them to brainstorm.

You tell them to rain words.

They stutter at rst, but then

They stampede with answers,

their imaginations ignited sparks

of lightning illuminating their minds.

They ll the box with favorite gems:

amethyst, amber and topaz.

They stu it with nature: rivers, grass and mountains.

They cram it full with their favorite animals: cheetahs,

lions and pit bulls.

one girl says, horse. You say, what kind?

She says, Clydesdale. The class choruses,

What do you mean kind? There are kinds of horses?

Your heart stalls like a stallion readying for its spirit to be broken.

Instead, you break into a run of words.

You give them mustangs, paints, palominos and quarter horses.

You want to hand them the universe, not just books,

but encyclopedias, dictionaries and thesauruses,

and the kind of homes that would have these books on their shelves.

You want to give them Langston Hughes, Saul Williams,Shel Silverstein, Jimmy Santiago and Lucille Clifton,

all in the reach of their arms,

where they hold themselves above their bombed-out

beginnings.

You want to give them a childhood

with meadows where they can play

in elds populated with poppies, daisies

and sunowers,

and parents that hang on their every word.

You want them to become the swift legs

of the horses that you just named.

Finally, you want to set them free of

their corrals

that anyone has put them inor they have drawn around themselves

their own zip codes or their minds.

Yes, you want to give them world peace

or just a piece of the world

where they can run free

to a lighted future

paved with a spirit open to words.

By Glenis Redmond 2010