11/19/21

By Josh Rubin

This week Martín Espada won the National Book Award for Poetry for “Floaters.”

The anger and the sorrow I have felt every time Martín has recited “Floaters” within earshot strangely comforts me. It feels good to know that someone has plumbed the depths of pain, and that someone can sing with such resonance that my heart can ignore its assigned rhythm, and can beat as if free for a moment. I think what I feel is called gratitude.

Today, as we hear the verdict that is only an echo of the verdict and punishment meted out one day not long ago by a boy with a gun put in his hands by a world with a grudge, I sit by a window, the sky filled with bright light and moving shadows. I am lost. I tried to read, I listened to some songs, and I reached for my phone to see what my friends are saying, how they are managing the brightness of the day and the darkness of the times. It feels like a funeral, and like a funeral there is the comfort that we share our sorrow.

We share our sorrow, and that is what I am grateful for.