Jesseca Kusher
Class of 2015
Poetry
Below are a sampling of my poems. To read more about their various recognitions please see my resume.
Sick of Waiting, Sick of Sinking
“unWISE and unTIMELY”
Seldom do I forget, YES. I must remember.
We cannot wait.
for injustice To fix ITSELF.
I can no longer sit here comfortably while the Tides of Change move around me.
The boat of ignorance, of laziness, shall no longer be a refuge-
for with the changing tides, it will sink, and I’ll sink with it.
I must choose to abandon this ship.
And I shall.
I can no longer ignore the calls to battle that spring from the lips of my brothers and sisters.
Calls for help, calls for understanding, calls for ACTION.
I will not let the ever present riptide of injustice bring down their efforts to change the flow of the current, today in the WORLD.
I know how to swim, and together, I will rise out of this boat and join them in the tide of change-makers to swim that boat- and all the people still within it- to the Shore of Equality and Justice.
I am sick of waiting. You have taught me that waiting is no longer an option.
Your words speak to the very center of my soul, the very center of my being- and they tell me. They tell me that waiting is a crime, waiting is a sin.
Sitting around, pretending to understand the tribulations of others is no better than kicking mud in the face of justice. It is no better than a man, faced with two paths, to choose the one more often taken. It is no better than watching a scrawny boy with little friends getting picked on behind the gym, and walking by without little thought. It is no better than trying to stop the rotation of the earth on a whim, because you think it should spin straight up and down rather than crooked.
There will be no more sitting. Not for me. I will stand, grab my sisters and brothers by the hand, and join in song to the millions who see that the world is spinning just the way it should be. We will sing out for the sake of everyone’s acceptance.
Accepted for who they are, who they love, and whatever the color of their skin may be- they will be accepted.
We will form a chain, that will wrap around the whole wide world, more than once. We shall play red-rover with the oppressors, with the stay-the-samers, the close minded. We’ll teach them that they’re playing a foolish game. They are bound to lose.
The times are changing and we will not stay silent.
The times are changing and the tides are changing.
Together we will move this boat to shore.
And equality and justice will reign.
(This poem won the Urban League of the Upstate (South Carolina) Martin Luther King Jr. poetry competition entitled: "Why We Cannot Wait" in 2013. Speciffically, the above was written in response to Dr. King's "A Letter from Birmingham Jail.")
Moonbeams
Turn the pages backwards. Reset all the clocks. Try to run away while the time- it never stops.
Lost inside a moonbeam world, the tide is slowly changing. Letting light unto the sand.
The dawn is softly breaking.
Leave me be, and let me sit- or I will surely die.
Letting loose the tender tears, that spring forth from my eye.
Lost inside a tender shell, by insides hollow and soft.
Beware of flesh that keeps me barreling alive.
Never fret for someday, the wounds that stay within- will not be healed, will not be fixed, but simply relative.
By the time the sun is high we will all surely know- that the wounds that fester inside our flesh are nothing more than rot. In and out, and upside-down it's true that we are sore. From dancing moonbeams across the land, and trying to keep score.
(The above poem was inspiration for my award-winning play by the same name, "Moonbeams." An excerpt from that can be found here.)
For You
A notice to leave your apartment
Your voice, drifting back into my life from a dark screen in a light box.
I can feel the warmth of your calloused hand in mine as we sing for the earth beneath us.
Ours is a quiet love. The kind that whispers sunbeams through library floors
covered in the tree roots of our past. The sort that sits calmly on white docks where pale rocks poke
at our toes from beneath. The mysterious kind of darkness that comes with the gray blue fog
settling on the corner of this land.
You are the archer, and I the maiden living in this wooden symphony.
Hand in hand, distant from another but ever so close as I hear your voice again.
Come back to me, chickadee, I miss the amber corners of your smile and the pale creases of your laugh.
So proud are you, with your composer just so strong, so elegant
Your most simple actions make me puzzle at your kindness
A pureness within your heart that makes my lashes moist
Longing solely to see you again in a new light
Away from the thundering footsteps behind me.
So long are the hours that pass between us
The days I once counted on your touch
have left me in the path
behind you,
to destruction.
My fingers hold tightly
Winding ribbons though the air into a single braid
A swing, to land in the river below
A time when you taught me how to laugh like the brook.
Tai chi floating in the sediment pools
Settling down below the minnows that look up at us.
We are the giants here,
On a branch carefully toeing
The line between careful and meaningful
Love.
Splash-
Into the ice,
My arching figure falls
down past the lookers which watch as she calls
The chickadee out on the highest limb,
Seeing quietly all the fears within
My madness
That brought me back here with you,
On that last day,
Before the earth broke in half and left me blind in the darkness calling your name.
The stainless innocence of my future staring blankly ahead at a chalkboard in which
Only numbers matter.
There you wait for me,
in the absence of light and sound.
I knew I’d find you here,
Just as you were.
Dreams of heaven only that,
meanwhile your soul stays near me ever keeping my heart warm against the ice-
y chill that kills only those that let it in.
As you let me in—
Those moments that I once spoke your heart-song into the void
and you called back:
“We are equals” you said
I see you as one I can love.
“I love you” was not a word spoken but a motion
From your chest to my own.
In the quickness of your brow I knew it was over.
They got to you, just as him before.
Reminding your heart that its powers are constrained by numbers
pressing in on all sides
crying out
dying.