Poems pass through moments, as do our lives. Both poetry and justice necessitate a vision, a series of quiet actions built from contemplation and our own observations. Both poetry & justice necessitate desires, this wanting & wanting more, this knowing & knowing more. This stitching between – a kind of locking of skewed, errant and yet beautiful tiles – is the movement between the world of poetry & this world itself, between the world itself & the world we desire – the world we will one day make.

It was a beautiful June day in 2012. Thousands of demonstrators participated in a silent march down Fifth Avenue to protest the New York Police Department’s Stop and Frisk policy. We marched under trees, past the Guggenheim and the Met lined with weekend tourists. We were Quaker activists, Muslim associations, civil rights organizers, labor union members, families from grannies to babies, student groups, queer youth, global coalitions, church leaders, and ethnic, cultural, and racial justice organizations, amongst others. We marched silently, reflecting the growing alliances between these groups, demonstrating the intersectional effects of this destructive policy. 

I entered Sri Lankan Tamil politics simply by telling my own story and listening to family and community stories. My earliest childhood memories were of Jaffna (Yalpannam), Sri Lanka—the place after whom I was named. My bedtime stories were of the struggle of Tamil people. Of gatherings tear gassed. Of riots. And of my parents along with the rest of our community, standing up for our rights.