A hundred times I tried to write this. But the words would not come. Poems froze in my head long before they reached the paper, and prose solidified in my throat like burning lava at the ocean’s edge. My soul was torn, and it took me a moment to catch my wind.
I write this from the very place comrade George saw blood in his eyes. The very hell where Tookie and I spent years, side by side, fighting, struggling, and educating each other. The place where we found our philosopher’s stone and went from blue rage to blackredemption And never looked back.
I sit here, in this place—San Quentin’s Adjustment Center—on December 13th, 2005. I sit in the dark imagining warbirds fillingthe sky and me chanting an African battle hymn and speaking Swahili to my brother.
But the words would not come.
I heard the helicopters flying over the prison, as the churning of their blades cut through the night air. I saw the look ofapprehension on the guard’s face as he peered into my cell to gauge my emotions. But, my eyes were empty. I concentrated intensely on pushing my mind forward…forward…forward, over the walls and amongst the sea of people who stood vigil outside of the gates. Their hope, their resolve, their love, made visible and given texture by the sheer force of their gathering. With all mymight I summoned whatever telepathy, or E.S.P., and psychic power I possessed. I wanted to tell each and every one of them—thankyou…thank you. But the words would not come.
At 12:36am I felt something seep out of me. Something that existed above the conscious level where Tookie and I communicated.I felt the weight of my brother’s huge arm around my shoulder the way I always felt it whenever we walked countless miles around the yard. I saw his handsome face and remembered when his beard was jet black—remembered how he never cursed—not once. Remembered the moment we became writers, and he said, “This changes everything.” And it did: Author. Poet. Artist.
Historian. Wordsmith. Mathematician. Philosopher. Mentor. Nobel nominee. He was right. Everything has changed.
Together, Tookie, Adisa, and I learned the real meaning of being warriors—of being men. We were always under siege, always targets.
Resistance became our dream-catcher amid this waking nightmare, and the distance we have traveled cannot be calculated in years because some epics exist outside of time, thus timeless they become. And we have always understood that struggle does not ceasewith breath or shat- ters with loss, but gains strength as the message is transformed into the living fire within each heart that struggles for change.
I did not grieve for my brother, nor did I say goodbye. For I am he and he is me, and our brotherhood was never temporal, so, thewords would not come.