For Marilyn Buck in Black August
preacher’s daughter[1]
what is a wall
what blooms beyond the body
what is left
*
you could write a letter
into dandelion wish
thread hope into green garlands
*
to wear catechism loose
form everyday practice
life lost nurturing life eternal
*
what is a wall
patient gardener of the word yes
unwilling to wait for the language
we could say it in
*
what is a fist
what blooms in explosion
in excelsis
in the decision to risk everything
and never take it back
*
poisoned decades
flowering furiously
into cancer
*
answer me this
marilyn
*
you who can never again be
interrogated
isolated
chained
*
where do they grow
white girls like you
awake and ready
to catch hell with both hands open
*
what is a wall
what blooms
what is left
[1] Assata Shakur (freed from prison by Buck’s action in concert with the Black Liberation Army) wrote: When I think of Marilyn as a preacher’s daughter, I think of her as someone who wrestled with the moral problems of our times and who was not afraid to take principled positions around those issues.
Marilyn had a choice. She could have remained silent; she could have reaped the benefits of white-skin privilege. But instead she chose the path of righteousness. She has defended the have-nots, the powerless, and as a woman she has struggled for the liberation of all women. The only reason that she remains incarcerated is because of her political activism.
She needs and deserves the support of all those who are committed to freedom and the abolition of pain and suffering on this earth. She deserves to be supported, she deserves to be respected, and she deserves to be free.
marilynbuckpresente.org 
Thanks to Allen Silverstone, a Board member of the Davis-Putter Fund, for bringing this poem to my attention! Funny story: I met Allen years ago — at an event I attended with Marilyn. We lost touch. Years later, D-PF helped with some of her educational expenses, and she recommended the Fund to Youth Emergency Service, a non-profit on whose Board I serve. On D-PF’s letterhead, I was pleased to find the name of an old friend! Now Allen brings us into touch with Alexis — a new D-PF Board member, and we see Marilyn’s influence continuing to weave a pattern of friendship and shared struggle!