As I sat on my bed at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, shock and horror emptying my mind of words, I thought of this poem I first read in a 1976 writing seminar. Susan Griffin, an amazing writer, came to our class, and the way she read her work blew me away. I don’t remember if she read this poem, but I hope she did. It would have breathed fire into my 21-year-old self.
Anyway, this poem floated up from memory the other night. To be clear, no one is advocating shooting anybody. Don’t do that. It’s a metaphor for deep rage.
I Like to Think of Harriet Tubman
by Susan Griffin
I like to think of Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman who carried a revolver, who had a scar on her head from a rock thrown by a slave-master (because she talked back) , and who had a ransom on her head of thousands of dollars and who was never caught, and who had no use for the law when the law was wrong, who defied the law. I like to think of her. I like to think of her especially when I think of the problem of feeding children.
The legal answer to the problem of feeding children is ten free lunches every month, being equal, in the child’s real life, to eating lunch every other day. Monday but not Tuesday. I like to think of the President
eating lunch on Monday, but not Tuesday. and when I think of the President and the law, and the problem of feeding children, I like to think of Harriet Tubman and her revolver.
And then sometimes I think of the President and other men, men who practice the law, who revere the law, who make the law, who enforce the law who live behind and operate through and feed themselves at the expense of starving children because of the law.
men who sit in paneled offices and think about vacations and tell women whose care it is to feed children not to be hysterical not to be hysterical as in the word hysterikos, the greek for womb suffering, not to suffer in their wombs, not to care, not to bother the men because they want to think
of other things and do not want to take women seriously. I want them to think about Harriet Tubman, and remember, remember she was beaten by a white man and she lived and she lived to redress her grievances, and she lived in swamps and wore the clothes of a man bringing hundreds of fugitives from slavery, and was never caught, and led an army, and won a battle, and defied the laws because the laws were wrong, I want men to take us seriously. I am tired wanting them to think about right and wrong. I want them to fear. I want them to feel fear now I want them to know that there is always a time there is always a time to make right what is wrong, there is always a time for retribution and that time is beginning.
