Portside

To Kneel

By Kathy Engel

The black men who make wages

from the brutal banging of the skull,

pounding of the knees, arms

reaching like branches in the long

arc of a pass, now kneel.

The muscles of their souls,

the soles of their cleats, stretch

of their thighs speak. Fans and refs

yell, commentators jabber and behold:

one knee, hand to ground,

they kneel, the weight

of their built-up bodies 

pulled earthward as if called 

by those from before 

to kneel now, refusing to salute

this country’s killing field. 

Those with the heart to be the lonely

first; their knees sing. Jobs at stake,

they kneel for the inheritors. For the future

dignity of bodies to choose to stand

or touch down. And the joining, too --

some, then flocks, arms threaded,

waving flags of jersey-ed bodies,

an anthem, for the uncountable – 

to be counted. And to those

who drop to the knee

only in the recesses of a locked

back room or those who switch and bait

in the light, amid the throngs—or those 

who hide behind their whiteness—

who will be there to kneel for you

when such a time comes, as it will

come? What will you say when

your children or your grandchildren,

their friends or lovers ask

what parts of your bodies 

touched the ground

in the moment of loyalty,

or the moment of betrayal?

What would I?

Kathy Engel is a poet, organizer, educator, cultural worker who, along with a group of women, founded the women's human rights organization MADRE, in 1983, and has co founded, led and consulted numerous other social justice, human rights and peace efforts for nearly 40 years. Her poems have appeared widely, most recently in Poet Lore and the eco justice poetry anthology Ghost Fishing (Univ. of Georgia Press, 2018). Her books include Ruth's Skirts, poems, 2007, and We Begin Here   Poems for Palestine & Lebanon, which she co edited with Kamal Boullata.. She is Chair and Associate Arts Professor in the Department of Art & Public Policy, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.