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duty (assata)

take one of your favorite poems and find a very specific, concrete noun in it. For example, if your favorite poem is this verse of Emily Dickinson’s, you might choose the word “stones” or “spectre.” After you’ve chosen your word, put the original poem away and spend five minutes free-writing associations – other nouns, adjectives, etc. Then use your original word and the results of your free-writing as the building blocks for a new poem.

line: “it is our [[duty]] to fight for our freedom”
assata shakur

i imagine her skin
aging precious years in the sun
small cells full of her
she named the task before us
then tucked herself down in the dirt
across a salt sea

i struggle with obligation
run away from it, dancing
how i love my choices
often making questionable ones
just to say
this is my life, these are my moments

but when i hear her poem
whispered, spoken, sung, screamed
it touches the place of dreams
at the root of me
rearranging my life
to love, to protect, our freedom