See-sawing along
the shores of life,
gazing upon
the reflecting light,
we grasped
keloids of memories—running.
And like fishermen of food,
we webbed together
the broken pieces of history
and casted our nets into the sea:
into the sea of perseverance—
Catching hope; harnessing redemption.
Running.
The word remains
mightier than the sword;
spiriting into being
in the space that gave birth
to time; manifesting circadian
rhythms of life.
Man, cocooned
in the Garden,
sought light;
the serpent showed
a flash—a streak of power:
in the image of,
became insufficient. Then a Pompeii
spark and all hell broke loose. But
ashes have a kind of Phoenix entity
that teases with spiraling smoke
of resurrection. Old seeds germinate
and grow new beginnings.
Out of the chaos of the inequality
of serfdom and royalty,
ships sailed upon the wrinkles
of ocean waves—ironing
creases to Middle Passage overtures
of an American symphony
that would scar the history
of so-called civilized humanity.
Neither new nor strange,
but peculiar became the systematic
dawning of a creation
that only man could bring
into being and sustain with evil
mythological justifications
of suffering’s redemptive nature.
America the beautiful: new
Adams and new Eves;
New World beginnings—
snakes slithering in the grass.