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the other side of an eagle feather
the other side an eagle feather
when the wind does not love
it is ruthless...
dark insistent memories
break into my dreamer's world,
long nails of misery scratch against a
funeral-draped window, there are no reflections
my aching hands are scarred,
persist my sodden heart
if I remember correctly,
in nineteen sixty something the bus from
Old Brooklyn to downtown Cleveland cost 10 cents
one way,
buses were going to Selma and freedom fighters from
the North
were riding to towns like Philadelphia, Mississippi,
and all it took was the honest fatigue of one woman,
after a long working day, perhaps an uncarved block
and unpainted silk on which the future was riding
I was graduated from high school
long before movies like Amistad and Beloved,
when Father Knew Best and Twilight Zone episodes were
closer to reality then anything short of the day Kennedy
was assassinated and became Reality TV, before Archie
Bunker truth became an acceptable household joke
I remember things in the dead of night that rise like flames in
morning poems,
Civil disobedience
is a way of life and political correctness has no meaning
and bore no resemblance then to thirsty children looking
for separate water fountains marked "blacks only",
learning in schools that colour was the length and breadth,
the depth of perception
In India the caste system is but a widow throwing her body in the
funeral pyre of her husband, in a world where Shar'ia law is the
honourable thing to live and do no matter how you love your daughter,
sister, mother or wife, and
somewhere a temple gong breaks the silence
and someone decides not to trample on tender green shoots,
even as Jerusalem is a conquered city of walls, every side wailing
into the long hard journey,
we all live on reservations, set aside by meaning.
~Anna/Kailashana
It was a dark and stormy night.... I'm posting this here to engage in a dialogue rather than on poetry stream. Hope we can talk.
when the wind does not love
it is ruthless...
dark insistent memories
break into my dreamer's world,
long nails of misery scratch against a
funeral-draped window, there are no reflections
my aching hands are scarred,
persist my sodden heart
if I remember correctly,
in nineteen sixty something the bus from
Old Brooklyn to downtown Cleveland cost 10 cents
one way,
buses were going to Selma and freedom fighters from
the North
were riding to towns like Philadelphia, Mississippi,
and all it took was the honest fatigue of one woman,
after a long working day, perhaps an uncarved block
and unpainted silk on which the future was riding
I was graduated from high school
long before movies like Amistad and Beloved,
when Father Knew Best and Twilight Zone episodes were
closer to reality then anything short of the day Kennedy
was assassinated and became Reality TV, before Archie
Bunker truth became an acceptable household joke
I remember things in the dead of night that rise like flames in
morning poems,
Civil disobedience
is a way of life and political correctness has no meaning
and bore no resemblance then to thirsty children looking
for separate water fountains marked "blacks only",
learning in schools that colour was the length and breadth,
the depth of perception
In India the caste system is but a widow throwing her body in the
funeral pyre of her husband, in a world where Shar'ia law is the
honourable thing to live and do no matter how you love your daughter,
sister, mother or wife, and
somewhere a temple gong breaks the silence
and someone decides not to trample on tender green shoots,
even as Jerusalem is a conquered city of walls, every side wailing
into the long hard journey,
we all live on reservations, set aside by meaning.
~Anna/Kailashana
It was a dark and stormy night.... I'm posting this here to engage in a dialogue rather than on poetry stream. Hope we can talk.