Mustafa Santiago Ali
Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali is the Executive Vice President of Conservation & Justice for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), former Interim Chief of Programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and Instructor at American University. He is the Founder and CEO of Revitalization Strategies. He also serves as a commissioner for The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). He is an award-winning writer and poet focused on social justice. Dr. Ali is frequently seen on television, including appearances on MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, VICE, FUSE, BET, National Geographic, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and Democracy NOW! Mustafa is also a regular guest on Roland Martin Unfiltered, Black News Channel, Tavis Smiley Show, The Dean Obeidallah Show, and many others…
Editor's Note: This poem is the 92nd in our Democracy and Hope Series. This series will highlight hopeful aspects about our Democracy using various genres including poems, interviews, short stories, and articles about political events
& what do you call a man who swears the flame is fiction while the trees pray for water in tongues of smoke?
the sky is a graveyard now, & every star wears the face of a thing we will never get back— the glacier’s slow breath, the coral’s quiet hymn, the child’s first clean gasp of air.
his suit smells like gasoline, his words spark like flint on dry bone, & i wonder if he dreams in ash or if denial is the lullaby he hums himself to sleep.
we are past the wailing— we dig fists into the dirt, whisper incantations of undoing, turn our rage into rain, our grief into green.
we will not burn for him. we will not burn with him. instead, we will rise from the soot, from the rot, from the ruin.
©️MustafaSantiagoAli
#Poetry #ProudBlue #LAFires #hughesfires #Climatecrisis #ClimateDenial #Resister #SepulvedaFire #CommanderOfGrief #sepulvedafire