Vibrations Ad Infinitum

I.

Trayvon
and Sandra
and Jimmie Lee
and Emmett

they are like lyrics we know

and Michael
and Martin
and Medgar

lyrics we know by heart.

and Viola
and Malcolm
and Philando

their names vibrate

and Tamir
and Eric
and the Charleston Nine

vibrate like a
plucked string

and Goodman
and Schwerner
and Cheney

the shudder
after a thrum

and Addie Mae
and Cynthia
and Carole
and Denise

II.

Memory.
A thread drawn
taut,
reaching back
farther than
we can see —

It is said that
Ancestors
hold the plectrum
that releases
a tone

all that is
known
and not yet
known —
a note that should

be heeded.

But memory triggers
painful hymns,
rolling sea-billows
of sorrows

that signal that, no —
no, it is not well
with my soul.
Because the vibration

is never-ending
and travels the
infinite length
of that string

III.

A mother calls police
about a man
who manhandled
her young son

and she is tackled
and taken to jail.
It takes me
instantly back

to a white security guard’s
hands clenched
on my arms
in a department store.

In my mother’s eyes
I see
fierceness

and
fear.

IV.

Emmett’s mother said
leave the
coffin
lid open

"I wanted the world
to see what they did
to my baby.”

Emmett’s accuser
said in 2016
that she lied about

the details
of the 1955 event
that incited

the disfiguring torture
and murder
of Mamie Till’s
baby boy.

Some of us
weren’t born yet
but still
we remember.

Like flashbacks
Medgar Evers’ widow
had upon hearing

the sounds
of a certain
candidate’s rallies.

V.

In 2017 Georgia
a police chief
gives a rare apology

for a lynching
that happened
in 1940.

He apologizes
to the black people —
many who

weren’t alive then
but they
never forgot.

He says

“There are relatives here
and people
who still remember.

Even if those people
are not still alive,
down through

the generations
that memory
is still alive.”

VI.

Erica Garner
was named for
her father, Eric

who told the police
who were choking him
that he
can’t breathe
can’t breathe
can’t breathe
can’t breathe
can’t breathe
can’t breathe
can’t breathe
can’t breathe
can’t breathe
can’t breathe
can’t breathe

And then
he died.

Erica spoke out
until she couldn’t.
“The system
breaks you down
until you can’t win.”

Erica spoke out
until she couldn’t.

And then
she died.

At 27,
after giving birth
to her father’s
grandson —

another
black
body.

VII.

Do we remember
there was a fifth
little girl
at 16th Street?

Addie Mae’s sister,
Sarah.

She lay wounded
in the hospital as
the others were
laid to rest.

She has said
“It seems we are
going back
in time.”

Back.

VIII.

Vibrations, hymns
go on
and on
and on...
No, it is not well
with my
soul.

Chicago
is vibrating
Indianapolis
is vibrating
El Paso
is vibrating
Pittsburgh
is vibrating
Flint
is vibrating

America
is
vibrating.

echoes of
dissonant notes,
memory
known and
not yet known

lived and
not yet
lived.

Trayvon
and Sandra
and Jimmie Lee
and Emmet

and Ahmaud
and Breonna
and Dreasjon

and
and
and
and
and

Celeste Williams is a recovering journalist — a newspaper reporter who worked at dailies in Indiana, Alabama, Tennessee and Wisconsin. She is also a poet and playwright. Her most recent play was on orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, in cooperation with Asante Children's Theatre and Conner Prairie Interactive History Park. She lives in Indianapolis with her husband, Greg Fisher. "Vibrations Ad Infinitum" was written long before George Floyd was murdered. The poem seems to not have an end. Thus, "ad infinitum."