Miklosh

The Ship Murmurs Falsities
by Miklosh

A candle flickers soundlessly,

Throwing light upon the densely packed ship’s hold.

A banging; hope fills the hold,

Comes, then goes, in as long as it takes

For a hummingbird’s heart to beat.

The candle still flickers.

Lives are lost, as is the light of the candle.

Claimed by the ocean or tortured to death,

Extinguished by a vigorous human exhale,

Followed by wisps of smoke like rising cirrus clouds.

A gentle rocking as the ship docks.

It tells the story of false promises,

Its deep voice murmuring constant

Words of comfort before the hatch opens.

The story of the whip, causing deeper

Gashes every time.

The story of the shouts and pain, and

The story of misery and constant injustice.

Theophilus

As Epictetus once said, “It’s

Not what happens to you, but

How you react to it that matters.”

Theophilus stood up to the

System that despised him, by getting

Married, by gaining freedom, by owning

Land, and by having children, among

Many other significant accomplishments.

He did not anticipate the whip.

He did not anticipate the pain.

But he was able to find himself amid

The suffering, find meaning in it, even,

And he kept fighting for equity

Throughout the whole of his

Life.

Miklosh's Writer's statement:

I wrote this poem in two parts to tell two different stories. One was crossing the Atlantic. Though we do not know whether Theophilus did cross the Atlantic, or whether he was born in the States, we know that others underwent this terror, and I thought it belonged in such a poem, to shed light upon what was to come, the story of injustice in general and not only the story of Theophilus.

We are talking more specifically about Theophilus this year, so I then wrote about his story. The story of Theophilus involves a lot of perseverance and grit. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” is an expression my dad loves to use. Theophilus not only reacted in a heroic way to his surroundings, but he also found meaning in his suffering, reason to keep fighting and not succumb to the injustice. Theophilus chose not to fall prisoner of fear. He chose to live a life in spite of his state of enslavement, and eventually it led to his freedom. This is what the second part of this poem is trying to show: that he got going when the going got tough, even though he was placed in a horrifyingly unfair situation, even though there were barriers upon barriers that were impossible to fully overcome. Theophilus earned his freedom, but one must not forget those who did not break through the walls passionately, who were held back before they could reach a state that was not perfect, still completely unjust. Theophilus made the most of this inequity, and still fought for his rights, not only for himself, but for the future generations of whom he would have been so proud.