THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

"BOUND" 2018

Yesterday brought news of yet more killings by white male domestic terrorists. Gun control doesn't seem to be in favor in the U.S. Killings have gone viral, as they say in the world of social media. This is indeed a virus, a disease that plagues the country and has no vaccine in sight. Above is an installation of the Rainbow Goddess huipil I created in 2011, shown here in 2018 as a protest against the killings, and prayer for the victims. 

Below is a poem I wrote to accompany the installation after one of the multiple school shootings. It was a year of such tragedies that have not abated. All of this, in some perfectly balanced and hideous alternate reality that has thousands of children and families from south of the border detained, arrested and jailed. Day after day. For migrating to what they believe would be a better life. Can we even fathom the horror and terror they have experienced in their home countries, that would make the U.S. seem safer? 

BOUND

Thoughts and prayers and not 

a goddamn change made by those 

who make the laws. Bound up with 

gun makers, gun sellers, gun lovers, 

aficionados, protectors of their 

right to bear arms. Putting their

lust for guns before their children.

Children whose dreams were boundless

and colorful and inspired like Dorothy 

and her magical friends.  Evil and pompous,

the wizard spoke from behind his curtain.

They persisted. They resisted,

and they exposed his madness.

Madness tears our world as easily as

shredding paper into strips. 

Rainbow children, we are not born evil

and we are not born mad.

Some of us grow into it.

Some of us grow becauseof it

lighting the way and mending the tears. 

Binding the wounds while unbinding 

hearts that have been trussed up for 

years.  Unbind the rainbow. 

Change will be made by dreamers

of every tribe and every color

loving unbound

learning unbound   

teaching unbound

speaking unbound 

marching unbound

singing dancing mourning shouting for 

those whose lives it took to say “no more!”

Lena Bartula

2018