Doctor Grandma

Late at night

as the moon travels

on its path across the sky,

the world asleep

the quietness

the calm and solitude,

the body screaming tired

but still awake,

the spirit lifts

above the noise

and peace sets in.

The bed now calls

and I will dream

until the morning comes.

cfblack  04-18-2018 1am

A day without sunshine,

only clouds,

and muted light from gray cloud skies,

until this hour,

when water is released

like a furiously falling waterfall.

I want to lay in the dark

listening,

lulled to sleep by the lullaby,

but my clothes are drying

and need hung tonight

or the wrinkles will set for eternity,

so I sit at my desk

grade some papers,

and write this poem,

to the falling rain.

cfblack  01-28-18

I think our car will find the way,
It knows this trip
from South to North,
where the Mountains rise before us,
Ancient beings, asleep but alive,
They breathe and sigh as we drive through
their winding curves and valleys,
to the rolling hills of Tennessee,
and then on to Kentucky.
I feel almost home
when we reach the rolling waters
of the Ohio,
where the waters stretch wide,
and slaves crossed over
to the beckoning arms of freedom.
A church now sits on the other side
my great-grandfather’s wife attended,
a stop on the Underground Railroad
in the time she was a member.
I love the South, the Palmetto trees,
the fresh smell of pine forest,
The Sun that greets me every day,
the artists and the people,
but I can’t help feeling a sense of pride
when I cross the great Ohio,
and know that my great-grandfather
wore a uniform of blue,
and once the lands lay flat on their back
and the Sky reaches down to kiss them,
when I see the corn and soybean fields,
then I know how much I missed them.
                            — cfblack 12-21-17

Child Within

This child within,

if you could know, right now,

Would it better prepare you

to love him or her,

to know if this fetus were boy, or girl?

This child, within,

if you could know, right now,

would you want to know who this child will love,

and if they are gay or lesbian?

Does it make you feel vulnerable?

Does it make you sad?

Does it make you worried,

or make you glad?

As parents, we are not entitled to choose

who are children will become,

Science-based learning cannot pre-select

hetero, transgendered, or intersexed,

We can’t punch a card and order us

a musician, athlete, or architect,

If we allow research to freely pursue

knowledge of us that is evidence-based,

we clearly see our complexity,

the beauty of human diversity,

and our capacity to love unconditionally

the child who is born to us.

cfblack 12-18-17          Based on the decision of our administration to ban these words from use by the Center for Disease Control and other health agencies: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

I want to call all my kids

Tell them I love them

Tell them to drive safe

Wear their seatbelt

And don’t go sit in a theater,

Walk on a sidewalk,

Or go to school.

It is too dangerous

to ride your bike

walk the streets of Times Square

or go to a music festival

held outdoors.

I want to tell them

Not to attend church

Not to invite a stranger

Into your prayer meeting

because he might be a terrorist

a delusional white supremacist

or someone who was in the military

(which doesn’t seem to bode well

for your mental health these days).

I want to tell them

to be safe, always,

Because if I had to go through

what hundreds of other parents are going through right now,

I don’t know how I would survive.

I want to tell the NRA

to go hide in a cave somewhere

and take all their guns with them

because no one needs any kind of gun

that can take 26 lives in 15 seconds

because they were angry at the world that day,

And the person who shot back

Couldn’t fire fast enough

to save them.

No one could.

And I want to write my Congressmen and women

to demand gun control

But I feel they are already bought out

Lock stock and barrel

and nothing will change.

I do it anyway

but it’s getting a little difficult to breathe in here

a little challenging to hope.

Why can’t we love each other?

Where does this hate come from?

“Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust?
That no one should exalt himself over the other.”*

—cfblack  11-06-2017

*Writings of Baha’u’llah