ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Author photo by Naomi Ishisaka
Dujie Tahat is a Filipino-Jordanian immigrant living in Washington state. They are the author of two chapbooks: Here I Am O My God, selected for a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship, and Salat, winner of the Tupelo Press Sunken Garden Chapbook Award. Along with Luther Hughes and Gabrielle Bates, they cohost The Poet Salon podcast.
Also by Dujie Tahat:
Here I Am O My God
Salat
The Therapist We Never Got Says, “Time Doesn’t Do Anything—You Have to Fill It”
Veterans Day Assembly
A hundred kids stand at attention, pockets murmuring
during the slide show when one of their faces appear
alongside a father or grandfather who served. My son
waves from across the cafeteria, blows a kiss, catches mine.
Show respect. You’re not talking. You’re honoring,
is what one teacher says. To the soldiers who have travelled off
sings a girl in hijab, to countries far and wide. Another
flexes in her thawb when she gets to the line,
To those who serve so gallantly, we sing this grateful song.
My oldest daughter wrote an essay on service, in
which she says, One small act of service can do a lot.
The kids with speaking roles focus in on the smallness of things.
Start with something small and maybe someday you’ll be
a veteran too. Today’s special guest did two tours in Afghanistan,
one in Iraq, piloted an unkind war machine my people ran from.
My people. My people. Who are your people? The answer is
blowing in the wind. The kids sing in harmony. At this time we will
have a recession of colors. More kids say they want to
thank the veterans. The R in SERVICE stands for recycling.
The I in IMPERIALISM is weeping in a room full of children,
lifting, carried away by the same water that brought my parents
to bring me here. I am so moved, yet so hurt. I love these kids.
I love the love these kids have. I love their beloveds and those
who call them beloved. And isn’t that, after all, how the project persists?
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
