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Walking
down a long-neglected block
in a
long-neglected neighborhood
of the
South Bronx I spy—sprouting
through
the sidewalk's cracks in front
of a
seemingly abandoned warehouse—
weeds, so
long-neglected that they
have
reached a height of one or two feet.
“That's
kind of tall for weeds sprouting
through
the sidewalk's cracks,” I think
to myself,
decide that I should stop
for a
moment, contemplate their struggle.
Bending
down to listen I expect
to hear
complaints about how life
has
treated them so unfairly, perhaps
an
expression of jealousy for
their
cousins who grow so easily,
not far
away, in that tree-pit
strewn
with random debris.
Yet the
only sound which reaches
my ear is
the gentlest chorus
of voices
murmuring, repeatedly:
“Thank
you for this space to grow.
Thank you
for this space to grow.
Thank you
for this
space to grow.
“It may
not be much,
but it
belongs to us.
Think of this mountain range
as a love child, born
from the passion unleashed
by two tectonic plates as one
dives, uncontrollably,
into the other.
Think of the earthquake
as a female orgasm,
rising up from deep within:
a momentary release
after so many years of stress,
of longing, striving,
on each such occasion,
to achieve a peak
higher than any that has
been reached before.
Think of the volcano
as a male orgasm,
exploding, spewing its flow
across the waiting flesh
of the earth.
No one planned
for these mountains to be born here.
It was a random happenstance
of a planet’s uncontrolled lust—
the drive, simply, to do what
a rocky planet
with a molten core
needs to do,
And then think again of love:
of God’s love
if you believe in any god;
of my love whether
you believe in god
or do not.
Many are proclaimed
over the airwaves,
in the press,
on the net,
to be great thinkers,
writers,
humanitarians.
Many are proclaimed.
But Eduardo Galeano really was.
Eduardo Galeano
really was.
(For Eduardo Galeano 1940-2015)
Go to https://mesanger.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/for-eduardo-galeano-on-the-day-of-his-departure/
Once a year we hear
the words of Martin’s dream,
and he receives a boulevard
for every city in this land.
It doesn’t pay
the debt we owe.
In a state where you
stood by while he was killed
an airport now is known
for Medgar Evers.
It doesn’t pay
the debt we owe.
And sometimes you repeat, by rote,
a song that Ella also sang. But no,
not even this, nor placing
one Black face inside
the whitest of your houses
pays the debt we owe.
Our debt sprouts roots
which dig that deeply:
down into a soil on which
these huddled masses toiled
without relief—though
they, too, had a yearning
to breath free.
Your prestigious universities,
cathedrals, mansions, palaces
of culture or of sport
and so much more—even
“amber waves of grain”
of which you sing
with so much pride
(from sea to shining sea)—
have grown upon
this ground, fertilized
long ago by unpaid blood
and tears.
“God’s grace was shed on thee”—
‘tis said, and yet they rarely note
that this was at the cost
of someone’s unpaid blood
and tears.
“Times have changed”
I hear you cry and it is true:
strange fruit does not so often hang
from southern trees these days.
It rots away instead in prison cells
or finds itself cut down too soon
upon a ghetto’s street.
The stolen labor, land and lives
just continued by another name,
you see, even after someone realized
that it might serve you just as well
to mark the end of chattel slavery.
The debt,
I note, is still
compounding as we speak.
Stories such as this will often
find their end upon a moral,
so here’s how this one goes:
The time is now
to pay the debt we owe.
The time has come
to pay the debt we owe.
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No one else there with them yet.
Too early in the year.
Still, today’s unfiltered sunshine
presents the promise
of its future season.
And so they stroll together
in search of reasons.
Taking off their shoes
they ask the tiny specks
that glisten between their toes.
Then they query the gust of wind
that causes him to chase after his hat.
They interrogate the flies that alight on the sand,
only to take off again before anyone has the time
to consider why.
They search for meaning in each other’s words,
carefully chosen, perhaps still more
in the silence between these words.
They look deeply into each other’s eyes.
Still, today, their questions can be answered
only by the cries of the gulls.
Or is it by their laughter?
After, during their parting, his goodbye hug
lingers just a moment or two longer
than is merely polite and he wonders
whether she will comprehend
the question that this has posed.
His goodbye hug
lingers a moment or two longer,
which makes him wonder
whether he himself can truly comprehend
the
question that
this poses?