ustxtxb_obs_2007_02_09_50_00024-00000_000.pdf

For Molly by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE Well, sometimes we just grew desperate For a simple word like True. So few people embodied it anymore. When you found one who did You wanted to circle round, like a campfire, In the dark, in the very very dark, And listen till the coyotes wrapped their cries In sleepy sacks and went to bed. The sound of True reminded everyone What a Brain and mouth was supposed to do. No one could ever have guessed We would be so lonesome for it, right about now. The doubts some of us had At the crack of the 21st century The century that started with so many zeroes So many empty eyes staring back at us Had quickly been confirmed. What had we learned in all those years? Everywhere we listened, forests of HAKI FAWTHI empty talk, in Arabic such a useful phrase were springing up. Despite the drought. Whole acres of Haki Fawthi surrounded the cozy home places we once knew. Made it hard to see where we were, where we could possibly be going. What could we lean on? Shadows fell upon families. Haki Fawthi blurred what we took for granted back in second grade Separation of church and state, for example. We had thought some things were taken care of. Had never guessed How many ways reality could be tipped. BUT FOR a few people, a raft Like THE TEXAS OBSERVER That might look thin but could carry Half the population more than two weeks, The voices of intrepid bravery and especially MOLLY MOLLY MOLLY. Wherever I go I say I’m not from the state of GWB, I’m from the state of MOLLY. And people cheer. In Minnesota they cheer. In California, Oregon, DC, all over the whole place. It’s like, we still have a few treasures left down here. Molly her voice pokes through the swirling malaise Stakes out the territory. Lights it up with Sense. Sentences. Brevity, beauty, kick in the ass Uplift, she Rescues the days. Restores Clarity. Says, Uh, wait a minute, I wouldn’t be so sure… This is not an easy job. Molly lays out facts With a neat hand and calls us BELOVEDS On the way. And something shines in the near distance again. Like a pond we dreamed of reaching. Something sparkles. It’s not gone. She’s a beam on a miner’s cap. Even when the miners aren’t doing very well. She’s the beacon in the tunnel. Even when the tunnels fall. She’s the clear note the symphony tunes to We do, we do. Never once have I read her words And felt worse. She stakes out the territory. Tells us where we are. She creates the gate in the giant wall That’s all around us right now. Except where it should be in New Orleans. She reminds us the word called TRUE used to be so big it felt like a future And we believed in it. Her blade of TRUE cracks right through the gibberish, the forests of lies, And takes us back where we can laugh again. 24 THE TEXAS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 9, 2007