Support to All Those Suffering from Repression in Georgia

I post this poem in support of those I know in Georgia, and for all those who are suffering under its repressive Georgian Dream Party government. For information on what's happening there, you might start with the Amnesty International report on human rights in Georgia here. I especially send this poem to those imprisoned or harassed for their belief in freedom of expression and for their peaceful resistance to tyranny, and will work for their release using my pen, even if it's at a distance. Poets are always among those whose voices are crushed by the institutions of power, but poets speak beyond borders and will be heard. So many younger people are deeply distressed by the reactionary shifts in their life situations, and need to be heard, to be understood, to be affirmed.

A Pacifist Sends Support to All Those Suffering from Repression in Georgia

 

I have never visited Georgia,

though I have seen how pictures

of mountains and their valleys

can evoke both the fantastical

and pragmatic, how the comforts

and tensions of family

can be illuminated,

how distance between

village and city

can be both a stress

and relief. I hear talk

outside the global news

services and their selective,

delegated, weighted stories.

And I hear charged voices

arising from many

streets, houses, work-

places, parks, burning

with anger and frustration

but galvanised, polyphonic

through power-lines, through leaves,

a choir of terrain and its people,

gathering across altitudes.

I sense those after-image fragments

reaching out over the sea —

a mist with clarity —

coalescing to stir

all sacred places.

Lines of pain stretch out

from prisons, their speakers

hidden away, smothered,

and I know those, too.

You are heard, people,

you are heard. I send

this back in the hope

that it acts as a talisman —

to  help keep you safe,

to show that we care.

 

 

            John Kinsella