"Carefully Taught"

I am broken into pieces that I don't know how to pick up
I am broken by the all of this
 
the hate
the anger
the intolerance
the division
I am broken by the brokenness 
I am broken by it all
 
we are fighting each other to stay alive
we are fighting each other to stay alive
we are fighting each other to stay alive
it's broken
implicitly
 
too much
 
how do you keep breathing
when there's no way forward
how do you keep breathing
when it's us versus them versus them versus us
 
how do you keep breathing when there's a knee on your neck
held down
held down
held down
 
police
kill
black
humans
 
actively
systematically
repeatedly
 
we train whites to kill children in school with guns
and we train police
to kill people
that they don't like.

Two Hours Before The Hail

the wind brings me raindrops

from clouds not yet overhead

and I watch them hit the windowpane 

while the last of the plum blossoms

fly directionless and free-form to the ground.

 

"It's chilly for April" we say quietly

not wanting to incur the wrath of Summer's heat

quite yet

 

and that wind has bite - 

leaving cheeks rosy with colour

and hands pulled up into sleeves

or pushed down into pockets deep

 

the rain a momentary instance

 

still snow

still ice

still life

to come.

Let's Be Giants

Let's be giants

we'll take our giant hands

and build giant buildings next to skyscrapers made of wood

 

and we'll wonder why no one sees the toys left around like Lego bricks 

and guy wires made of candy floss

and we'll play giant games

 

our giant feet stomping through the city making valleys where we walk

 

Let's be giants

and build things

with our hands the size of cars

and our laughter loud like thunder

and our hearts beating thick and heavy

full of joy and pain and emotions made ever bigger by our size

 

Let's be giants

and curl up together

our backs against the hills

our faces to the ocean

knowing more adventures await us in the morning

as we leave behind the buildings we made

standing next to skyscrapers

made of wood.

A Place I've Yet To Be And Have Been Before

I smell your smoke

through air thick with ocean

and your wildness drifts in through the open window of my room.

I can't think, if I'm honest, 

of any times I've camped without a fire

but we're not near a campground here 

so I wonder why I smell your smoke,

where your fire is,

and if you're staying warm

on this damp Spring evening

with air so thick with ocean

it carries the scent of your smoke

and the image of your fire

straight through my open window.

Fifth of June

I don't know what to do

I feel helpless

I am so angry

I am so sad

and this isn't about me

I sit in my privilege and I pick at scars others would be glad to have

I am exhausted

exhausted by the anger 

(I don't do anger well)

I have made myself sick from it

(but never have I feared for my life at the hands of police)

I don't know how to help

I can't help

I try to help

I've been told I care too much

(I do.  It just is.)

I tell myself I don't care enough

(I do.)

I want to fix it.  to fix it all.

the inbred hate

the centuries of oppression

the system after system after system of racism meant to hold some up

and others down

I apologize

for my silence

for the sins of those who share my colour of skin

for the things I can not change and can not fix

and for the people who don't quite seem to get it

yet

I don't know what to do

it seems trite to find joy

it seems lame to search for peace

how can I

share beauty

love

art and peace

when my brothers and sisters are dying

killed

murdered

hurt

injured

held down, held back

thought less of

by some

anger on both sides

anger on all sides

and I don't know what to do

I don't know how to be

what to say

how to breathe

(and yet there is no knee on my neck, no gun taking away my life, my lungs have range of motion, my breaths come slow and easy. I can breathe.  I just don't know how anymore.)

Nature's Joy

they tell me it's plum

plum trees 

shooting puffs of pink into the new come Spring

plum trees blossoming early early and letting us see the hope of renewal

of life

of ongoing growth and change and seasons and cycles

they tell me it's plum

but we all say cherry

cherry blossoms - sakura

and they come too

and white apple blossoms on that one tree down the road

and then the snow of Spring - these delicate petals

these blossoms

spin as they are blown

(darling buds)

by winds still couched in Winter's breath

I walked today

past trees heavy with these blossoms 

I felt cool air touch my face,

watched birds fly overhead

nature doesn't know that we all are in pause

nature presses on

Spring blossoms fly through the air and pollen dusts my car

they tell me it's plum

not cherry

not at first

and I would curl up in the softness

pull a blanket made of their lightness up up up until it covered my chin

because

Winter passed

Spring is here

and life goes on

You've Given Me A Lot To Think About

“You’ve Given Me A Lot To Think About”

Sound echoes when the air's this heavy

and they call it "mist"

but I think it's the pain of all our losses

making its way back down to the ground.

Do you ever wonder

about the slow disintegration

the water's making 

one

small

droplet 

at a time?

Because people travel to the Grand Canyon

to marvel at its depth

but they don't sit and stare

at their own backyard

falling away

a nanometer a minute.

I am really tired 

of standing where I do

and being collateral damage

over

and

over

and over

“So MOVE!”

they shout

but I get grabbed

again and again

and eyes and lips

and words beg

beg beg me to stay.

(“Please?”)

I lessen the damage

when you roll a low, low number

and I take the hits

just like you asked

but also the ones 

you seem to ignore.

I am bowled over by the wake

and stuck deep under the wash

and you stand on my back

to get to the air.

Is it a mark of your ignorance

or the bliss you find therein

that you look at me with confusion

as I tell you I trust you not at all

while I carefully tend

to the wound you gave me

which sits next to another

and another

and another

and more?

I am tired of being the ladder you climb

to your own salvation

while saying words

you think

mean more than your actions.

Sound echoes when the air’s this heavy

and the pain of my losses

drips slowly slowly slow

as I make my way

back down to the ground.

I am my own Grand Landscape

carved away 

forever changed

one droplet at a time.