After Zuko (2019)

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Poetry

For Piccolo

Little Black boy’s first Black male role model

is green. Broken, grumpy, hell-bent

on hurting someone, like his father. To be a child

is to inherit sin.

still

when there was no man to play dad

there was a man who would destroy the moon

just to let a boy sleep soundly. Sure, he made

chaos. But he made it in your name.

redemption

be the solace every man wants to earn

without working for it. i see the moon

and think of my father, guiltless being, who must

see it too. A boy learns man to mean

leaving

a child to grow up in a forest. A Black boy dreams

of a man who appears, after many seasons, with a new

soul, who says little, but touches your forehead soft

and teaches you everything. A boy is waiting to find

man

in someone. All my heroes were evil once

but at least they returned in time for dinner.

Imagine that? All it takes to be a good man

is to come back.


For Zuko

Yes, I too have known fire. And yes,

I too have wondered if I come from

a burnt people. A people who have always

been ablaze. I too have hated my own hands

.

And yes, I too have been prince to a kingdom of folk

and then dishonored them. I have worn a white mask.

I have cut my hair to look less like me. I too

have sought to be anything other than the ashes

of another man’s sin. I have tried to earn my existence

in a nation that would not claim me. I have scorched

the ones who care most. I have searched the countryside

to find something I always had.

And yes, I too have been unworthy of my mother’s love.

And yes, I too have known the right thing to do

and done otherwise. I too have been a refugee

and a product of my tribe. Yes, I am still running.

I too am afraid of being a good man. And yes, I too

have been beaten by water until it felt like a baptism.

And yes, I too would burn the whole forest down

just to feel the warmth against my skin

(Dave Harris)

Author

Either a playwright who writes music or an author who writes plays, Dave Harris is. Or maybe just a West Philly poet, Idk Fam. His work was featured, among others, in the Huffington Post, Button Poetry, Upworthy, Yale Repertory Theater, UMASS Amherst.

Racism Issue

After Zuko is a poem from his book entitled Patricide, which mentions a character from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Zuko is from Fire Country, a place whose inhabitants are able to bend and manipulate fire in this fictional world. Harris wisely mentions the iconic fictional show in this clever piece about the difficulties of a black man to grapple with his identity and masculinity as a way to illustrate his struggle to be a black person in a world that freely accepts white people, but treats people of colour with contempt. Harris is a poet and playwright originally from West Philadelphia who graduated from Yale University.

Reference

  1. Harris, Dave. 2019. After Zuko. Retrieved January 1 2020.
  2. Singh, Chayelene. July 7 2020. 7 Powerful Poems About Injustice & Racial Discrimination. Retrieved January 1 2020.