Lake Henry July 11, 2020

album

lingering afterlife

If you saw the black and white photograph 

You might think it could be Ernest Hemingway 

Standing there being posed holding the big fish

Bundled in a parka against the cold snow and ice.

Twelve years since my friend David died

Three years since that photo appeared 

Beside a remembrance another friend wrote

Published in the 50th reunion compendium. 

As a dear friend Rosie once explained

Not long before she died this year

The dead exist in a kind of lingering afterlife 

In the memories of those who knew them.

The David I remember would surely laugh

Seeing that photo of himself like the way he laughed 

Reading aloud Brautigan’s Trout Fishing In America 

Mocking the manly Hemingway having sex with a fish.

For me the words of praise for David filling that page 

Beside the bemused expression I see in the photo 

Left out the essence of the person I loved to be with 

The one I knew not yet forgotten to me

The one with the melodious good natured chuckle

The one who dared to speak from the heart 

The one who had no truck with pretense

The one who stayed true to his roots in Flint.

The one who gave me encouragement for my writing 

The one who introduced me to Black jazz musicians

The one who opened my world up to new possibilities 

Though I never quite understood his meaning 

As he read his poem almost shouting the final words

"If the shoe fits, WALK!"

Until many years later more subdued 

Having lived through his losses and disappointment 

The divorce late in life of his parents 

The suicide of his mother afterwards 

The disillusionment with his older brother 

The friend who failed him in his time of need.

All that weighed on him in such a human way

As he took a sober inventory of his life

Never wavering from trying to do the right thing 

Being a good and generous person

Running a small bookstore with his adored Liz

Putting out boxes of free books for the community 

Forever enjoying reciting his favorite Jack Spicer

"The sounding brass of my heart says 'love'."

Lake Henry July 6, 2020

album

declaration

People who were born into slavery 

Were still alive when I was born 

Not so very long ago

Not so far removed from current events. 

Native Americans with treaty rights to their land

Belonging to them by right in the first place 

Stolen even more recently 

Forced onto reservations to live in poverty. 

Abolition remains unfinished business 

Reparations yet another broken promise 

Slavery reconstructed through imprisonment 

Democracy deconstructed through disenfranchisement.

The way things are today has not changed really

The systemic racism behind the professed ideals

The ongoing history of genocide and betrayal 

White man speaks with forked tongue. 

Japanese immigrants sent to concentration camps 

Yesterday's news overtaken by the latest outrage 

Latinx immigrant children separated from their parents 

Placed in cages like dangerous animals. 

On the Fourth of July I do not celebrate 

Living in a place where freedom does not ring

Where people of color live in fear

There can be no truth and reconciliation possible.