For all of us who keep breathing anyway

The sky split last night, not with lightning but with the sound of another headline folding itself into our bones.  Somewhere, a child translates her mother’s fear into a silence no school will teach.

We keep saying resilience, but it tastes different now, like gravel.
Like praying with a bruised mouth. More of what Maya Angelou meant
when she said: Still, I rise—not as helium, but as history, weighted and rising anyway.

James Baldwin once warned that the fire next time wouldn’t need gasoline.
Turns out, all it needed was forgetfulness.

Ocean Vuong would name his ache after his mother’s hands — the ache that floats until it drowns you gently. Call it beauty. Call it survival’s softer twin.

I want to write what Ada Limón might write: that the dog still curls beside you like nothing’s wrong.  That sometimes, living is just loving ordinary things with wild devotion.

But today I only know the thunder of Melania Luísa Marte’s tongue—how she carves open America with poems like scalpels, reminding us we are not lost, we are looking.

And I wonder if Maxine Hong Kingston, with her warrior ink, knew we’d still be collecting stories like river stones, each marked by exile or elegy.

So here we are, poetry trying to hold what prose keeps breaking.
Here we are: barefoot on yesterday’s ash, learning how to build
from smoke and syllables.

We are the ones who refuse to be unthreaded.
We are the ones who sing even when the song cuts our tongues.

Because hope isn’t something soft.
It’s the scar we name home.

Artwork by Abdul-Wahab Youssouf (Toronto, Canada)

Introduction to the artist, in his words…

I was born in the Republic of Djibouti and I have constantly joined in my youth an artistic environment, I developed very early a taste for art. I worked in the setting up of events, being part of a particular artistic environment.
I discovered an irresistible attraction to painting at the age of 19, I immigrated to Canada and worked with a local organization that creates art in specialized communities by offering art workshops to the Ottawa community for my painting that reflects African culture, then I set up a small studio in the basement of my family’s home as a freelance artist, thanks to my privileged relationship with the local communities, I carved out a place for myself with a prestigious clientele.
I also took the opportunity to present my paintings in several exhibitions in Ottawa in the early 1995’s. After visiting Toronto and exploring new opportunities, I fell in love with the city of Toronto.
I decided to move to Toronto in 1995 and felt the need to express myself through art, gradually pushing to pick up my brushes. In 2000, I returned to exhibiting and it was immediately noticed that my paintings and inspirations are unique skills describing the beauty of nature.
I have exhibited my paintings for many years in various galleries throughout Toronto, Ottawa, and internationally; I have exported my paintings for exhibitions in France, Djibouti, Dubai, and Ethiopia.

References in the writing to:

Maya Angelou- American poet of African ancestry

James Baldwin – American poet of African ancestry

Ocean Vuong – American poet of Vietnamese ancestry

Ada Limón – American poet of Mexican and Scottish ancestry

Melanie Luísa Marte – American poet of Dominican ancestry

Maxine Hong Kingston – American poet of Chinese ancestry