An Amanda Gorman Poem In Memory of Those Still in the Water.

[NNadir]

A New York Times Opinion piece from the young poet who moved us during Joe Biden's inauguration:

Amanda Gorman: In Memory of Those Still in the Water

Excerpts from the prose text:

On June 14, 2023, the migrant boat Adriana capsized off the coast of Greece, killing more than 600 men, women and children who had been crammed onboard the trawler by traffickers. As investigations by the BBC and The New York Times have revealed, officials and coast guard crews failed to treat the crisis as a rescue mission until the last few hours.

Those on the Adriana died torturous deaths. According to interviews with survivors, “those on deck were tossed into the sea. Panicking people stepped on each other in the dark, desperately using each other to come up for air, to stay alive. At the water’s surface, some clung to pieces of wood, surrounded by drowned friends, relatives and strangers. Others climbed onto the ship’s sinking hull. Coast Guard crew members pulled dozens of people from the sea.”

And yet, given the scope and horror of the disaster, few people seemed to care; the story was barely a blip on many news websites. Not long after, the world eagerly turned its attention and resources to an ultimately unsuccessful rescue of five wealthy passengers aboard a faulty OceanGate submersible...

...Refugees and migrants dying while trying to cross the Mediterranean in search of safety is not new. The United Nations estimates that more than 27,000 migrants have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014. As I am an African American keenly aware of our history, the tragedy of the Adriana is in some ways familiar to me, a haunting that is almost heritage: Humans squeezed onto a boat by their traffickers, crushed skin to skin, bone to bone, throats gasping in the breaths of a hundred suffering others, enduring or perishing in the hellish conditions of starvation and dehydration as the vessel churns them away from their homeland.

I understand that the trans-Atlantic slave trade and refugee migration differ. African people were kidnapped, trafficked and enslaved; today’s refugees and migrants are forced to flee through perilous routes because of poverty, war and crisis. But as different as these two historical occurrences are, they share the cruelty and global apathy that allowed them...

The poem:

These Means of Dying
by Amanda Gorman

May the took here

Rest.

This an action to recover the value of certain

want—

the perils of the seas, and contrary currents and

other misfortunes, rendered foul

the said ship,

for a quantity did not remain—

died

through thirst and frenzy there

drowned; their lives

a loss not within terms—

port of rule—

There appeared in evidence no necessity to justify—

At all events the loss arose not from the perils of the seas,

but from negligence—

The truth was, they took these means of

dying for want of provisions, but no attempt was made—

It has been decided, whether wisely or unwisely

is not now the question, that a portion of our fellow creatures

may be good.

The question is, first, whether any act.

reach currents stronger than apprehension—

Lord—

This is a very uncommon case, and deserves

consideration. There is great weight in the

Loss—

There should be a new

Will—

Justice, of the same—

Justice

is not the same as a stated declaration.

The law is the instrument

to recover

a remedy. Suppose the law clear, that

this declaration could raise that point

absolute

Amanda Gorman is a poet and the author of “The Hill We Climb” and “Call Us What We Carry.”

[Hekate]

1. KnR

[Bluethroughu]

2. My tears are un-contained.