Like cattle we stand,
We wait,
We wait,
Standing in line we wait.
Upstairs they are full,
So they put us here,
We are hidden behind a wall,
The line is long, then turns a corner,
goes down another hall,
There are no chairs,
no resting place,
I wonder how long it will be?
Mothers with babies
Desperately bored,
Old raggedy men in dirty clothes,
People just wanting to pay a bill,
People with disabilities,
An old woman with knee brace
cuts in line.
No one says a word.
A new bride wants to change her name,
She jokes with those before her,
They make a pact to stay together,
not leave ’till they all get through,
Eventually, they let us go
to elevators in the hall,
We run past security, yelling,
“We are free!”
(He doesn’t cut a smile.)
Upstairs we check in,
and take a number,
but here, we have a chair,
Three hours’ time
to people watch
and then I disappear.
Archive for July, 2019
Social Security
July 22, 2019when you are 3
July 22, 2019When you are 3,
Language doesn’t matter,
Our mommies wait in line
but we can play,
Como te llamas?
What? What’s your name,
Hold my hand,
Now let’s jump!
Mama’s number is called,
Wave goodbye,
Now alone she says,
“Mommy, I lost my best friend.”
Trijntje served tea
July 20, 2019In the back seat of the car,
all the way to South Dakota,
Trijtnje served tea.
“Cup ee tay ha?” she would say, and smile,
“Kopke tee?” in Frisian Dutch.
Always a gracious host,
she passed this trait to her daughter,
and my grandma passed it to me.
You never take a drink
without offering to others,
You always have a treat,
some coffee or tea,
They took her with them to the Dakotas,
to see relatives who hated the Indians,
We may be poor,
but we’re not “them”,
not Black or Indian,
thanks be to God.
They came to America and learned its ways,
Learned who was who, and what was what,
Grandma Trijntje served tea in the back seat of the car,
only there was no tea,
it was all imaginary,
just like those boundaries they put between people,
that America taught them were real.
cfblack 07-20-2019
foods I grew up on
July 10, 2019My mom was a stay-at-home mom. Her job every day of her married life, it seems, was to clean the house, do laundry, feed us lunch when we came home from school for lunch (no school lunch program in the 60s), plan and make dinners. She cooked with a lot of beef: hamburger, steaks, roasts and stews, also ham on Sundays, turkey on holidays. Every birthday we could choose what we wanted for dinner and I always said “Steak and creamy corn”. I was such a weird kid. Anyway, these are random foods I remember my mom serving:
hamburger casserole
sausage casserole
salmon burgers
homemade mac & cheese — lots of cheese
cowboy eggs (scrambled eggs with real bacon mixed in)
white rice with cinnamon and sugar on it
mashed potatoes and gravy, the gravy served in a little pitcher-like dish we called “the gravy boat”
“TV dinners”! (Frozen dinners cooked in the oven)
no microwaves or crockpots in those days either!
Doing the dishes after dinner, washing, DRYING them with a towel, and putting them away, was part of the routine every night. (no dishwashers!)
All of this was just the era we lived in, but makes it hard to cook healthy today, with all the awareness about red meat and the need for fresher foods.
Independence Day
July 4, 2019On this Independence Day,
while we celebrate,
children are locked in cages like dogs,
given a space blanket,
left alone to cry,
left alone to die,
never seeing the Sun,
a little boy cares for his younger sister,
a mother’s baby has no diapers,
They are not let out to bathe or shower,
they do not have enough to eat.
Their crime is coming to the land of the free,
expecting grace, or sympathy,
Mothers and fathers, hundreds of souls,
no room to lie down, no room to play,
They wait, and wait,
they are wasting away.
Lady Liberty stands tall and demands a change,
she calls to you and me,
Lady Liberty calls in agonizing pain,
for what she sees today.
This nation stands for equality,
for freedom, for humanity,
“For as ye have done for the least of my brethren,
ye have done so unto Me.”
cfblack 7-04-2019
Doctor Grandma 