"Catch The Fire"

 

(Sometimes I wonder:
What to say to you now
in the soft afternoon air as you
hold us all in a single death?)
I say—
Where is your fire?
I say—
Where is your fire?
You got to find it and pass it on.

You got to find it and pass it on
from you to me from me to her from her
to him from the son to the father from the
brother to the sister from the daughter to
the mother from the mother to the child.

Where is your fire?  I say where is your fire?
Can’t you smell it coming out of our past?
The fire of living…not dying
The fire of loving…not killing
The fire of Blackness…not gangster shadows.
Where is our beautiful fire that gave light
to the world?
The fire of pyramids;
The fire that burned through the holes of
slaveships and made us breathe;

The fire that made guts into chitterlings;
The fire that took rhythms and made jazz;

The fire of sit-ins and marches that made
us jump boundaries and barriers;
The fire that took street talk sounds
and made righteous imhotep raps.
Where is your fire, the torch of life
full of Nzingha and Nat Turner and Garvey
and DuBois and Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin
and Malcolm and Mandela.
Sister/Sistah  Brother/Brotha  Come/Come

CATCH YOUR FIRE…DON’T KILL
HOLD YOUR FIRE…DON’T KILL
LEARN YOUR FIRE…DON’T KILL
BE THE FIRE…DON’T KILL
Catch the fire and burn with eyes
that see our souls:
WALKING.
SINGING.
BUILDING.
LAUGHING.
LEARNING.
LOVING.
TEACHING.
BEING.
Hey.  Brother/Brotha.  Sister/Sista.
Here is my hand.
Catch the fire…and live.
live.
livelivelive.
livelivelive.
live.

Sonia Sanchez 

"Words born of turmoil and misunderstanding/I write of visions I see through the haze"

"San Diego Evening Tribune." The speaker is a woman.  "A simpler question than Gary's: Can songs change the world?"

Too much like hard work for me, thinks Dean, looking at Elf, who looks at Griff, who says, "Hey I just drum along."

"Songs do not change the world", declares Jasper. "People do.  People pass laws, riot, hear God, and act accordingly. People invent, kill, make babies, start wars."  Jasper lights a Marlboro.  "Which raises a question.  'Who or what influences the minds of the people who change the world?' My answer is 'Ideas and Feelings.' Which begs a question. 'Where do ideas and feelings originate?' My answer is, 'Others. One's heart and mind. The press. The arts. Stories. Last, but not least, songs.' Songs. Songs, like dandelion seeds, billowing across space and time.  Who knows where they'll land? Or what they'll bring?" Jasper leans into the mic and, without a wisp of self-consciousness, sings a miscellany of single lines from nine or ten songs.  Dean recognizes "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," "Strange Fruit", and "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine."  Others, Dean can't identify, but the hardboiled press pack look on.  Nobody laughs, nobody scoffs. Cameras click. "Where will these song-seeds land?  It's the Parable of the Sower.  Often, usually, they land on barren soil and don't take root. But sometimes, they land in a mind that is ready.  Is fertile. What happens then? Feelings and ideas happen. Joy, solace, sympathy.  Assurance. Cathartic sorrow.  The idea that life could be, should be, better than this.  An invitation to slip into somebody else's skin for a little while.  If a song plants an idea or a feeling in a mind, it has already changed the world."

Bloody hell, thinks Dean.  I live with this guy.

"Why's everyone gone quiet?" Slightly alarmed, Jasper asks the band.  "What that weird? Did I go too far?"

 Utopia Avenue

David Mitchell

'

Days of Future Passed

 Five years later, I take a deep shuddery breath to stop myself crying.  It's not just that I can't hold Aoife again, it's everything.  It's grief for the regions we deadlanded, the ice caps we melted, the Gulf Stream we redirected, the rivers we drained, the coasts we flooded, the lakes we choked with crap, the seas we killed, the species we drove to extinction, the pollinators we wiped out, the oil we squandered, the drugs we rendered impotent, the comforting liars we voted into office -- all so we didn't have to change our cozy lifestyles.  People talk about the Endarkment like our ancestors talked about the Black Death, as if it's a plague of God.  But we summoned it, with every tank of oil we burned our way through.  My generation were diners stuffing ourselves senseless at the Restaurant of the Earth's Riches knowing -- while denying -- that we'd be doing a runner and leaving our grandchildren a tab that can never be paid.  

The Bone Clocks

David Mitchell 

(c) 2014