Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets and occasionally we feature poets from other states. This week’s featured poet is Veronica Noechel of Raleigh, North Carolina.
E.V. Noechel (she/her) lives with OCD, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, severe chronic pain, excoriation disorder, and an assortment of delightful animals. She is devoted to animal rescue and advocacy and through this work has learned what an honor it is to be trusted by another species. Her work has been repeatedly nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has received generous support from North Carolina Arts Council, the Vermont Studio Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, United Arts Council, The Culture and Animals Foundation, and I-Park.
Here’s her poem “Kobayashi Maru: A Bedtime Story
For Elijah McClain”
Elijah, when you were killed by police,
even as you declared aloud your defenselessness,
your steadfast vow of pacifism, your devotion
to the shelter kittens you regularly lulled to sleep
with your violin’s songs, did it all feel familiar?
When they injected that toxic
dose of veterinary drugs
into your shaking arms
did you return to Tibet of 70 years prior
with your fellow monks’ spirits hovering in the air, dead
yet still humming with your combined chanted wishes
to take the whole of the world’s suffering away with you, begging
to carry its weight on your back as your soul rides to the skies
in the stomachs of the circling vultures?
A pacifist facing down the heavily armed, your declarations
of defenselessness again your only weapon against those determined
to silence your people. Did it ring a bell? Spin the wheel
of dharma? Hum into eternity the low vibrations of singing bowls
or the fine motor skills that control the quiver of the violin’s bow
scratching
notes out of strings like the cyclic purrs of newborn kittens
against the bellies of their mothers, an endless loop
of sound that says, “I am here. All is well.”
Elijah, you are their greatest fear. Strength without force
is a monster these wanton warriors and tyrants simply don’t know how to fight.
And now, as you lie on the pavement, with the warm passing up
through your clothes and into your veins,
may I tell you a story—a true one? Not at all long ago,
maybe a handful of years, on the same continent that caresses
your cooling body now, there was an adolescent wolf cub
whose entire family was killed by land management. His life was spared
but in exchange, he was collared with a tracking device. And once a year,
like Santa Claus they would fly to him, helicopter blades biting the sky into pieces
with a sound like world was going to end. And his would
with high-powered telescopic rifle blasts from so far above, it must
have seemed like the sound simply caused their heads to explode. One after another.
His mate gravid with pups, his cubs half-grown to gawky, popping
in horrible red firework bursts right where they had been trotting
behind him moments before, a noise rising out of White Ear he would never forget,
a cross between a yelp and a throaty deep cough as she dropped.
And the wolf would lie flat to the ground, eyes closed, expecting to be next.
But instead the nightmare noise faded away. Every time he was left
to lick the ears on their bleeding heads, to nuzzle their paws in a vain
effort to please make their bodies work again. Please.
In that moment, did he remember the first time at just a year old, seeing
his parents, his sisters, and his mother’s new litter wasted in a pile
of yelps then silence while he grappled for control
of his brain as it was forced into a helpless drugged sleep? Did he remember
waking up on the bloodied ground with a heavy box strapped
to his neck and the bodies gone, taken by their killers
to be stretched over taxidermy forms in an office, a display somewhere
meant to educate their children about his kind.
That wolf must have remembered the next time it happened
and the next time. Did he start to believe it was a disease
he carried--an exploding typhoid to his Mary.
Now Elijah, can I whisper one more story
before you have to go again? Before
this all happens again, please?
Please-- I don’t want to be this radio collar anymore,
my white skin a deadly betrayal to the men and women murdered
all around me. How didn’t I know it was happening all around me? Not
till technology became a witness did I have a clue
that murders blossomed red and real wherever I went.
Black bodies falling around me like lost mothers, lovers,
family, best friends, strangers, my mentors, teachers, and heroes
like you. Snap snap snap and they’re gone day after day the same
true story repeating itself and I didn’t even know,
didn’t even know this, even notice.
But I remember now. I want to be wolves
together. We can be majestic, we can
fight back with our harmlessness and our teeth.
I don’t know if you’ll take me, but I know
I have to try. I will remember. Now.
For more information and a CV, please visit: https://www.evnoechel.com
