Aracelis Girmay's You Are Who I Love

Salvation Rocking in her wooden chair on the porch, she told me the rain was the tears of angels. Rain, the blessing that descend from the sky washing away the bad and invigorating the good. The good within Aracelis Girmay’s in “You are Who I Love” resonates as an ode to love of all people. Possibility and space for love is within the blank spaces of the poem. While Girmay’s ode fosters individual reality and respect, hate continues to persist. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. chained arms with others and sang “We Shall Overcome.” In anticipation of the impending danger, they began their march on the street in Birmingham. Confined to his cell, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reacts to the concerns of eight religious leaders in his “Letter

Poetry, in presence of the metaphysical, still possesses structure for the reader to weave in the authors purpose while considering their own. Girmay chooses specific events that can happen anywhere in the world, but unites the characters under one love or God (the reader). “You are who I Love” creates a snow globe effect that makes me feel set apart from the “you.” As if I have an obligation to love the people I am seeing move before my eyes. Although the you “selling roses/getting blood drawn/crossing the dessert” are doing different tasks at different times in different locations, the unity remains. More so the love extends from the individual life to the coexistence of all the people in the society (or globe). Girmay successfully convinces the audience that a universal love exists between the empty, silent spaces in her poem. Love is the “you better than me, you kinder and so blistering with anger, you are who I love.” If the rain is the tears of angels, I suppose the reason is joy. Love is virtuous, abundant, and passionate. As the reader, I look down into the poem as she begins to list the recipients of love. Love belongs to the you “teaching your parents how to do the Dougie/changing policies.” Discovering that we all stand to “witness to each other’s tenderness” and appreciation of unity through the troubling times. The poem recommends a life of love in moments of mania and mildness. Similarly, “The Letter to Birmingham Jail” calls for justice for true unity of