June 15th, 2016 by Terra | Filed under Talking with Other Authors.
My friend (and great thinker, moving poet, inspirational character) Franklin Abbott shared this poem with me this week, and I share it with you in dark times.
Let’s all think seriously now about how we’ll Michaelangelo this world with a stronger arm and sharper chisel.
YOU CANNOT KILL ME
by Franklin Abbott
I am not only I
but a multiplicity of souls
I have always been here
I will always be back
I was your uncle, your 5th grade teacher, your cousin
I will be your grandson, your niece, the boy next door
you can erase my words
and a new Sappho, Rumi, Whitman, Stein, Lorca, Lorde
will emerge and write what I wrote
even more beautifully
you can shatter my statues
and a new Michaelangelo
with a sharper chisel and a stronger arm
will make grander statues
you can silence my singing
and a new Bessie Smith
will sound a bluer note
I have always been here
indivisible, essential
to the human spirit
firebird I am
feathered serpent
in every opposition
I am
the tender collapse
that always happens
before a song
rises up
to heaven
you see
I cannot die
you cannot
kill me