A Litany for Freedom

Since returning to Portland, Oregon, from Jamaica, having organized, produced, directed, and performed in Eve Ensler’s, The Vagina Monologues, in its first-ever staging in Mandeville, Jamaica (serendipitiously, in Manchester, the parish of my parents,) I have been feeling caged-in, afraid, lonely, lost even, but mostly silenced, muffled and restricted.

This morning I happened upon this Audre Lorde poem and it spoke to me, as clear as a church bell strikes the hour, resonant, loud and clanging, and dropped at my feet a key, my key, the key that only I can use to open the final door to my freedom…

A Litany for Survival,
by Audre Lord

For those of us who live at the shoreline

standing upon the constant edges of decision

Crucial and alone

for those of us who cannot indulge

the passing dreams of choice

who love in doorways coming and going

in the hours between dawns

looking inward and outward

at once before and after

seeking a now that can breed

futures

like bread in our children’s mouths

so their dreams will not reflect

the death of ours;

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain

when the sun sets we are afraid

it might not rise in the morning

when our stomachs are full we are afraid

of indigestion

when our stomachs are empty we are afraid

we may never eat again

when we are loved we are afraid

love will vanish

when we are alone we are afraid

love will never return

and when we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard

nor welcomed

but when we are silent

we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.

Tags: Courage, Freedom, Liberty, Life, Love, Survival