india, chicago
is a person not a place, an expressing, a sharing that somewhere there are people who write the words she loves and that she wants to write such words, words that somewhere people in chicago and other cities will love even though those words do not resemble the worlds of chicago and other places where people read those words.
but what are we trying to do with words? what do we want those words to do to other people? when we read words do the words do anything? they don't move. they are just impressions on paper. does paper feel words the way readers feel words. what about the words we read that don't move us. do we feel those words. the signs on the sides of busses that pass us, that we pass, sitting in a car, passenger side, looking absent mindedly out the window at the bus and up at the passengers on the bus sitting absent mindedly looking straight ahead or out the window at us now not looking up but inward, who was that declaiming to us to "vote" in big block letters?
at night when the buses are in the barns do those words stop blaring, do they sleep or do they continue to shout "vote" even though no one is noticing. what is the meaning of words if no one sees them?
do you ever wonder about words? do words ever wonder about us? of course not, silly, words don't have minds. people have minds and with their minds they conceive of words and make words. what about people who make words that they know people will ignore. what happens to a mind that makes words that they know will be ignored but that mind is in a body that gets paid to make words and so the mind in the body conceives the words and the hand of the body accepts the check. the same hand that wrote the words pockets the money. words for money.
but those are not the kind of words india in chicago wants to write. those are not words that matter, that have weight, that are remembered, that make impressions that lead to ideas and actions and staying up late, reading, slowly turning the page, mouthing the sounds, even as a lover impatiently asks "when are you coming to bed?"
words that are so strong and insistent they delay us from bedding a lover, i think those are the kinds of words india in chicago wants to write.
—kalamu ya salaam