Is He Still Alive?
By Joergen Ostensen
4.19.19—Good Friday
This poem is the result of a brief conversation I had with our tour guide during a visit to Robben Island. He had been a prisoner there for seven years. I told him that my dad, George, had served a 26-month prison sentence in America that ran concurrently with part of his. My dad was a member of the Plowshares Movement and became a political prisoner for his civil resistance action, which was motivated by his opposition to America's use of nuclear bombs.
Then the former prisoner said: Is he still alive?
Taken aback I said: Yes.
And he replied: Then send my greetings to him
Under the afternoon shadows
Of the twisted razor wire
He tells the story
His story
The perverse, brutal story
Of the chains
That bound his arms, his legs
The metal ball that pressed
Against his teeth
Keeping him quiet
In the unfathomable fear
He felt in the dark
As the boat passed over the waves
To the island
Where seven years of memories linger
Even now, seven years away
From everything,
Everything he loved, desired, hoped,
Dreamed, lived for.
He tells this between jokes
His face bearing the weight of
His memories, memories too horrible
For me to imagine
Too horrible to vaguely enshrine
With words in a poem
And I knew that then
As my hand touched his
And I was telling him
Without knowing why
Who I was
There on the island
There one stop away
From, infinity, oblivion, heaven
Or whatever lies hidden
To the west in the setting sun haze.
Shaking his hand
And this is just to say
Thank you, thank you
Thank you for sharing
This hour with us here
Thank you for telling your story
And this is just to say
My father was a prisoner too
In the shadows of American razor wire
In his own solitary cell.
My father, whom they tried to break
Like they tried to break him
My father, who believed
In the non-violent Jesus
The Jesus who overturned the money-changing tables
That were defiling His father's house
With atom bombs and Bantu education.
And…
Shaking his hand
This is just to say.
Shaking the hand
Of a true freedom fighter
And I wonder if he thinks of his father
Now like I think of mine
As he asks me a question
That haunts the sea breezy
Afternoon air like the ghosts of the fallen.
Is he still alive?
And taken aback I falter
Not understanding why
He is asking that
As I stand there an instant shaken
While the shadows slowly lengthen
And the waves continue their assault on the rocks
And the setting sun covers
The looming, tantalizing mountain
In an ominous shade of gloom.
Is he still alive?
And it makes sense now
Here on the island.
Is he still alive?
And it makes sense
Coming from this man
Whose father got a letter
His father the ANC member
His father who almost didn't open the letter
His father who lived in Soweto
Like his son in a tiny house
Crammed with people trying
To be alive and have dignity at the same time.
Is he still alive?
His father who opened that letter.
Is he still alive?
His father who died
When that letter was a bomb.
Is he still alive?
And it makes sense
Here on the island
Here somewhere between
Heaven and hell
Where death, the memories of death
Are all around us
Death, cool, intractable death
Death that clings even now to every shadow
Death because they believed
They should have the right
To be alive and have dignity at the same time
And the world didn't.
Is he still alive?
Yes.
Then send my greetings to him.
And with that our hands detach
And I wander off
Seeing how the sorrow of the world
Can be understood in a question.
Is he still alive?
Yes and how lucky
How wonderful to say yes
Yes and the difference is so vast
So real, so present
Here in this moment.
YES!
In the world of hate and fear
Of tanks and guns and letters holding the kiss of death
YES!
In the world of atom bombs
Of prisons on both sides of the ocean
Even in the ocean
YES!
In the world that killed his father
The world that pointed a loaded gun at mine
The world that hung Christ from a tree.
Is he still alive?
And nothing more needed to be said
Under the lengthening razor wire shadows
As I walk away
Knowing, feeling, understanding
Now for the first time
How wonderful it is
In a world of death
To say yes.
