|
|
| CARVIEW |
Black and white,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
As always,
Eating blood and gold,
Letting kids die.
Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi
Organizing sharecroppers
Kids will die in the streets of Chicago
Organizing workers
Kids will die in the orange groves of California
Telling others to get together
Whites and Filipinos,
Negroes and Mexicans,
All kinds of kids will die
Who don’t believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment
And a lousy peace.
Of course, the wise and the learned
Who pen editorials in the papers,
And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names
White and black,
Who make surveys and write books
Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die,
And the sleazy courts,
And the bribe-reaching police,
And the blood-loving generals,
And the money-loving preachers
Will all raise their hands against the kids who die,
Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets
To frighten the people—
For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people—
And the old and rich don’t want the people
To taste the iron of the kids who die,
Don’t want the people to get wise to their own power,
To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together
Listen, kids who die—
Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you
Except in our hearts
Maybe your bodies’ll be lost in a swamp
Or a prison grave, or the potter’s field,
Or the rivers where you’re drowned like Leibknecht
But the day will come—
Your are sure yourselves that it is coming—
When the marching feet of the masses
Will raise for you a living monument of love,
And joy, and laughter,
And black hands and white hands clasped as one,
And a song that reaches the sky—
The song of the life triumphant
Through the kids who die.
Quick and dirty update: My mom is past her hip replacement surgery (the big day was June 17th). The preparation for the surgery was so intense and time-consuming. There were clearances that had to be got from PCPs and dentists and cardiologists and rheumatologists and whatchamacologists, and then there was the mental preparation for a person who has been mostly bed-ridden for three+ months, plus the fact that my stepdad no longer drives but needs to go places (he has lost almost all his vision from glaucoma). They both need to do things like eat, too. Then came the surgery itself, hospital recovery time, physical therapy, and home recovery…which includes “precautions” against dislocating the new joint. You have to move like a robot: “nose over toes”…easier for some of us than for others.
But her pain is so much less now. Yesterday she forgot about her hip — HUGE development. She is also driving again! All worth the effort, for sure. However, I’m kind of annoyingly tired. Wish I had the energy of say, a Hayat or a Scooter!
I’ll find time for a real update soon.
]]>
You Begin
You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.
Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.
This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.
Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.
This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.
~Margaret Atwood
]]>
]]>
recent quote: “I’m not sure I’m going to be a scientist. I might be a clown.”
]]>
It froze last night and I feel completely betrayed. I have been postponing putting all my tomatoes and herbs in the garden, but they are going to seriously cook in the greenhouse if they are in there much longer, and they’re root bound and I don’t want to do yet another transplant. And it’s supposed to freeze again tonight. Please, please let this be the last of it. The wind will be hard enough for the plants to endure.
However, if that’s my biggest problem I should just be very quiet.
We had a really fun spring break, aside from the drives out and back (HELL IS REAL). We spent a beautiful beach day with G and D and their merry band, got to see my dad a couple of times, and the weather was perfect and sunny and not too hot. Pineapple whip was had twice at Disneyland. I got to Soar Over California twice, too.
I watched Lincoln after we got back and was sniffling within the first five minutes, so you can imagine how the rest of it went. I had to watch a bunch of Jenna Marbles videos* to regain my emotional equilibrium.
Isa managed to catch the Lincoln virus on her trip — I’m secretly thrilled. At the Lincoln Memorial, she and her best friend read the Gettysburg Address together out loud.
She also caught a cold, which she was fighting during the California portion of her week, but she had fun in spite of it.
I do have photos (but I didn’t take my big honking camera to Disneyland — I figured an iPhone was camera enough, and my neck and back thanked me enthusiastically) which I will try to edit and post soon.
Hope it’s warming up smartly for all y’all!
*this is in no way an endorsement of Jenna Marbles videos
*do not watch Jenna Marbles videos
]]>