Sarah Kay - Orange

the monks that are waiting at my gate at jfk might not be monks but they are all wearing orange robes orange sandals they are rolling orange carry-on bags and one of them even has an orange neck pillow already on his shoulders in preparation for this flight to dallas i know the rules about photographing people you don't know but forgive me i snap the shot so i can send it to my mother and make her day my mother won't say that she gave up photography to raise children but it is true that she used to be a professional printer with a life of image making and then stopped to fill her arms with babies and then toddlers and then children and then the things teenagers handed her when we refused to be held any longer you might think that a woman who spent hours inhaling chemicals and grueling over various sinks and under various lights to create a perfectly balanced image would begrudge a technology that imitates it but you haven't met my mother this is a woman who loves new york more than she loves any human alive or dead every day she walks through the same shitty city as the rest of us but when i return with a mouth full of complaints about the weather the subways the tourists she remains an endless scroll of wonders of the things she insists could only happen in new york so when my best friend james teaches her to use the app we all use she isn't angry but amazed this would have taken so much work in the dark room she says now it's just a button it's like magic when james and i were little his favorite color was orange and my mother loved this fact found it strange and marvelous this little boy willing to forgo fire trucks and power rangers claiming the untouched reject of the crayon box preferring the traffic cone the citrus fruit in order to practice using the app and get her photography sea legs under her again she takes photos of orange objects around the house and on the street she only has two followers james and me but every caption is the same orange for james and she wanders the city as wide-eyed as always stopping strangers with excuse me i noticed your wonderful orange bag your hat your construction vest that's my nephew's favorite color may i photograph it never mind that he isn't her nephew never mind that this makes him sound sick and not thirty which he is this is the way she has always moved through new york in search of bright morsels she can bring home to share in dallas i wait for my bag at the carousel and a man in a corduroy jacket approaches asks me if i am sarah k when i say yes he says my priests know your poetry and they thought that it was you motions over his shoulder at the men in orange behind him but when i wave he says i'm sorry because of their religious vows they are not permitted to communicate with someone of your gender but they asked me to tell you that they wish you continued success days later a new email through my website reads we hope we did not offend you by not meeting in person to appreciate your work and also pray that your poetry lights up minds smiles and souls of all those searching for meaning that your beauty with words be not just a trained art but a reflection of who you wish to be and then an offering of a poem in sanskrit that roughly translates on bearing fruits trees bend become humble with newly gathered water clouds hang very low this is the nature of the benevolent i used to think this was a story about coincidence or about the invisible thread of poetry that so many people are holding on to even and especially people who may not have anything else in common but i actually think it is a story about my mother how she didn't have to take a photograph for 30 years to make a camera of a daughter or at least teach her that the way you notice can be a weapon or an act of love that color blooms through every city whether you see it or don't whether you seek it or don't so why not seek why not see why not ask yourself who am i looking for [Applause] you

Channel: Button Poetry

Views: 59,159

Keywords: Slam Poetry, Button Poetry, poetry slam, performance poetry, spoken word, poetry, poets, poems

Id: aubc0gZevhQ

Length: 5min 25sec (325 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2022