Striking line is from James Taylor’s “Close Your Eyes” – You can sing the song when I’m gone.
My sweet daughters, you
have grown into activist women who can
and will join God to sing
justice over the
brokenness. Singing a new song
to fight injustice for Earth and her children. When
you are old and have left the world better, I’m
going to smile from the long gone.
Numbers Tell the Truth: Deaths of Vaxxed vs. Unvaxxed
Life-saving vaccine effective and free
Urging us to avoid it is a powerful campaign
Opposing it, against all reason and morality
“Politicizing [this] is an act of outrage and frankly
moronic,” said Mitt Romney, his repute retained
Life-saving vaccine, effective and free
A running tally of who is dying would decree
the truth of the disinformation as inhumane,
Opposing it, against all reason and morality
Right wing lawmakers and talk-show hosts on a spree
to lie about microchips that will put us in chains
Life-saving vaccine effective and free.
Succeeding to a spectacular degree
is the lethal propaganda created to entertain
Opposing it, against all reason and morality
History-making, world-saving efficacy
Look at the facts; truth will remain
Life-saving vaccine effective and free
Opposing it, against all reason and morality
The final post was by Tracie and Mo: “A Moonlight Experience” I didn’t have much time, so I just wrote a few lines about a full moon I saw in the high desert that woke me up one night. I went outside and walked around thinking it was a cross between sunshine and moonlight. I had never seen such a bright full moon.
ripe as a pumpkin
full moon beams and shines
as bright as serene sunshine
Awaiting our final trip home
Enduring months of the unknown
We’ve been here seven years so great
Always knew the expiry date
A seizure has gripped us and shown
A pompous plague pens a new tome
We will sacrifice to atone
And appease the curse to create
Our final trip home
Have we now reaped what we have sown?
How long before we will have grown
Beyond this harbinger of hate?
I yearn to stop and end the wait
Our final trip home
Oh, ginger spice, you bring joy to life
Your honest and prodigious flavors yearn
To share their beauty and reduce strife
Thank you for your irresistible warmth.
Oh, ginger spice, your flavors dance on my tongue
Sweet, salty, biting hot and spicy
Your flavors blend so fine, but remain unsung
Rivulets of deliciousness flowing within.
Oh, ginger spice, how to describe your color?
brownish-red, bronze, chestnut, copper–
Those are not quite right–they seem a little duller
That’s why you have your own exclusive eponym.
Oh, ginger spice, you are covered with cracks
and crevices, dipped in sugar and teeming with
reasons to overindulge. My healthy eating slacks
As I enjoy one, two, three, four, five, six…
1
There’s a story in this place
A story no one told me
My ancestors
My teachers
My textbooks
Were whitewashed tombs
The Greatest Generation
Family vets came home from war
bought houses in the suburbs
and graduated from college
Thanks to hard work and persistence
Why didn’t they let me see
the decaying and decrepit
bones inside the tomb?
Family vets came home from war
bought houses in the suburbs
and graduated from college
Thanks to the GI Bill that
worked primarily for white veterans
2
Bill Barr, you are wrong when you said,
“Well, history is written by the winners,
so it largely depends on
who’s writing the history.”
We’re done with that.
The introductory essay
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
in The 1619 Project won a Pulitzer.
3
Story, come anew
Story, come afresh
Story, call us onto your lap
Hold us gently and whisper truth into our ears
And if we don’t hear it this time,
slap us upside the head
Tell us a story to retell to ourselves
A story to tell and retell
to future generations
We’ll be better ancestors
Better teachers
Writing better textbooks
We’ll break the unspoken
Racial contract, the one that denies
All people are created equal
Come quickly, Story
For five days, each month, I write with other teacher-poets at EthicalELA for Open Write. Read more about it or sign up here.