“If Your Heart Has Been Hurting,” Poem, Alixa García.
If your heart has been hurting
and your eyes can’t believe it
and your ears feel the burning
from the lies they are speaking
And your soul knows the compass
but the path’s unrevealing
and you're wondering how
this violent world came to being
And you feel just as lost
as I feel in the evenings
when the silence of night
gives way to the beating
of your heart’s constellation
and the hymn that it’s singing
And you feel the tumult
of the tide as you’re swimming
against currents of cultures
dedicated to spinning
the truth
is revolting
from the lies they are printing
and the ones they are saying
in the hopes of their winning
on the international stage
where Palestine is bleeding
and South Africa is stinging
The world is afoot
while humanity’s clinging
to the reckoning ball
that crashed into the house of our being
Our soul is concussed
from the force of the swinging
and I wonder how long
it will take for the healing
of our collective anatomy
after the reeling
The stumbling is not yours alone
I’m here with you in this feeling
it’s gut-wrenching and piercing
The gaslighting has me begging for air
and some sense of a clearing
I just keep saying to myself
This is a paradigm shift
This is a paradigm shift
This is a paradigm shift
and we chose to be here for the shifting
who chose to be here for this shifting?
This earthquake of utter proportion
is this moment’s wisdom-held gifting
If we stay anchored in love
while the power hungry keep doing their bidding,
eventually,
like star energy turned gold found in the sifting
our devotion to life will unveil what they’re risking
I don’t know if it will be in time
Sometimes I think we just came here to be witnesses
of the way we go down as the most blessed of beings
who didn’t know what they had
even though they were told from the very beginning
I know it feels like we’re drifting
I pray the winds will have mercy
or at least keep uplifting
other worlds we can’t see
because we’re not big enough
for that kind of dreaming
But that’s another poem.
This one here is to let you know
that I’m reaching
For you
and for you
and for you
out there in the expansion of living
You are not alone
I’m proud of your breathing
and speaking
and for holding the line
and for holding life at the center
despite all of the beatings
I came to let you know that I’m reaching
for you
and for you
and for you
because this paradigm is shifting
Hold my hand
let us pivot together towards life
and honor all this death
with the shape of our living.
Alixa García is a Colombian-born, globally-raised, multidisciplinary artist, award-winning poet, climate organizer, and filmmaker. She is a published author, exhibited visual artist, facilitator, and cultural strategist. Her performances and keynotes have taken her around the globe, from South Africa to Mexico, the U.K. to Cuba, and beyond. She has presented at hundreds of universities, conferences, and festivals, including Harvard University, the United Nations, and T.E.D: Ideas Worth Spreading. With a 23-year background in community organizing, artistic and popular education, a lead thinker in creative strategies for social movements, facilitator, and international speaker, Alixa's expertise has been instrumental in supporting justice leaders, scholars and students, community activists and organizations, state representatives, and the nonprofit sector to realize their potential in the areas of creative blueprinting, trans-local and global organizing, and environmental education. Her unique approach centralizes art for movement building and the role of imagination as an essential tool for liberation. Alixa is also a sought-after visual artist. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, CA; the Kunsthal KAdE Museum, Netherlands; and The Pop-Up Museum in New York, NY, to name a few. Her website is www.alixagarcia.com. Copies of this print, for sale, can be found there that benefit MECA (Middle Eastern Children's Alliance).