captain, O my captain
Gentleness, sacrifice, devotion; when I was younger and trying to teach myself humility I'd play a little game. Regardless of where I was — grocery line check-out, library, bookstore — I'd ask myself: "what if the person standing in front of me was my teacher? my elder? and I need to learn something fundamentally, life savingly, important from them?" It would thus become a question of how I would treat that person, regardless of race or gender or age, differently than if they were a stranger.
Looking back, I see it was sort of a sad game, really. I never found the teachers I so desperately needed; I've never had an elder like that except in vague ways, like from books and that is not the same … if you could have one teacher from all history (living or dead does not matter) who would it be? Who would you call Captain, O my Captain? Whose flag would you fly going into the last, great battle?
For me, the current Pofessor of History of Consciousness at the University of California and Presidential Chair at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Angela Y. Davis, is the elder I wish I had. Davis' Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (1998) should be required reading everywhere. She once said:
Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.
Yes, yes, yes, I think we can all learn something vast and important from her. Something life savingly important.
Before the "I" in riot, before
the "am" in bedlam, as in, "I
am a riot," you forgot, yes
you did, how hard it was
to follow. Has obedience ever
left any of us lucid and happy
and stranded? Ever? It's
the same when a pulse comes
to an end, or a government
falls and people say O they knew
it was a mistake, that everybody
says it'd never work. O to know
like everyone knows. What duties
of the flesh are there? We fight
for the soul all the time yes,
the soul, always the soul — & general,
if I do not follow you word by
word? then let my flesh hide
but O delight, if I follow you, into
shaming obedience, word by
word, my teacher, word by word,
why would either of us ever bother
to hide again? Either of us?