Tag: #Poverty

Hail Storm

Courtesy of Shutterstock 
Let us sneak away from the world
for a moment,
a day,
an hour,
somewhere far off.

Could we stay 
where no worries
can touch us?
We could live the old cliché
where everything drifts away--
no jagged scars to light the sky 
above ink black mountains,
or loud drums of scary thunder,
no driving rain and golf ball hail
to bring to mind
the old woman with leathered skin
horribly bent and twisted at the waist,
pushing a makeshift cart down the street
from Walmart ----

Here I am warm, safe.
Scared and worried, yes--
about possible broken windows
or a leak in the roof
while a poor, bent soul
has no windows to break,
and no roof to leak.

Now, in my safe, warm privilege,
after having driven by her earlier today,
I wonder if she is safe 
or being stoned by such hail.
Some may say,
“Her choices led her there…”
“She should have found a way…”
“If life gave her lemons….”

How can anyone make anything
when life hands you dirt 
on top of nothing?
Sometimes people have no luck,
but I did as a once homeless teen.

And what am I,
who can now some fifty years later,
seek escape 
from the worries 
of how a roof and windows
will fare in this storm,
when such as she exists?

For All Our Daughters, A Prayer

Image courtesy of depositphoto.com
My daughter, mine,
though you live
       thousands of miles away
sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Though you live	
        where a man caresses a weapon of war as he plots
	to drill death into hundreds as he walks down a street,
sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Though you live 
        where freedom should ring 
	yet a state ties you hostage in righteous ropes of religion,
sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Though you live
        where you must sell your body
	to feed your children,
sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Though you live
        where no one, no law will protect you
	from the monster who sleeps beside you,
sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Though you live 
        where you have no voice,
        where you die in the custody of morality police,
        where you can disappear with no outcry to echo behind,
sleep, sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Hair part II: Untamed and Ugly

courtesy of CFR.org
courtesy of radio free europe
courtesy of Reuters
courtesy of Sydney Morning Herald
by Curtis Ray Benally courtesy of Rollingstone.com
I grasp this beast of kinky

curls that sits upon my head,

attempting to tame it into submission.

First, the wire brush stretching strands

straight as concentrated hot air

dry the water from the beast.

Slowly the taming comes.

Finally dry, frizz left there,

making me aware who the boss really is. 



I break out my next weapon 

against this frizzy beast:

The flat iron.

And while it heats,

I tune the speakers to a podcast

about the missing women of Juarez.

Sectioning my beast hair as I listen

about women missing,

women found dead,

women to whom no one paid attention 

because 

they were

women, girls

because

they were

brown

because 

they were

poor

women, girls

brown

poor—

The things 

that do not grab attention

that fade away in the media

easy to say of these—

They ran away.

They ran away with a boyfriend.

Oh, she’s a drug addict.  Who knows where she went?



And on I go to straighten another section

Of hair with my hot flat iron.

My beast neatly tamed.

I think it would be easier to braid my hair into rows.

Decorating the braids with small beads,

a bead for each missing woman,

a bead for each murdered woman,

a bead for each missing, murdered, indigenous woman of color

in this land, across the globe.

Each tiny bead 

with a name microscopically etched

and then braided into my hair

as beads of grief,

a bead for each woman, each girl—

If I could then even lift

my bead heavy head

like the mothers who carry

sandbags of grief searching

the world for daughters

gone missing—

what could I, one person, do?



The world spins on.

Despite the burden of beads,

these beads braided

into the fabric of motherhood

across the globe

for girls gone missing,

girls glanced at, ignored 

by a society that sends up invisible prayers

then turns forgetting what it deems valueless,

girls marked by the violence of poverty,





Then I think of 22 year old, Mahsa Amini.

dead in the twisted irony

of morality police custody for a hijab violation.

I should shave my head in solidarity 

with the women of Iran 

who protest.

But what could I, one person, do?



Would beads or a shaved head here make a difference?

Would anyone know the meaning?  

My neck cannot bear the weight of braids with beads enough for each woman.

My bald head would not be understood as sign of solidarity.



So I send out my chicken scratches of a poem

into the world, and I choose to leave it as it is, 

Untamed and ugly.



Winter’s Will

image courtesy of ALEX VASILYEV on wired.com

There is no understanding

how winter comes

for it comes in too many ways

at too many times

often when it shouldn’t

starting at the edges

creeping to the core

snatching away all the covers

driving out the flames

or

slowly, softly

almost tenderly

like a gentle, timid lover

will winter drift into days

as autumn delicately falls

little dip by little dip into winter’s icy arms

then a frozen world is made.

At times winter rides

with sword drawn

into spring

after life has begun

to wreck havoc on all things

green and growing,

make still all hearts feeling the flow of life begin,

at those times, winter rides

until sweated out

in the course of time.

Yet winter may freeze us solid

in the midsts of summer’s heatwaves

as we stand over gaping mouths of graves.

While some breathing in the hope of spring

as others live in winter’s black ice

suffering the bite of hunger and need

winter’s winter grows larger still

beyond Arctic, beyond talk of tundra,

or talk of some kind of permafrost—

but something too many know.

we will not end in fire

nor will we end in ice

in the end,

it will be the lukewarm breeze

of indifference,

the one to do us in.