Looking and Seeing

A mother of swirling black smoke bore you
Bundled in burlap
Atop burning earth's dust bowl

Before you

A life of sweat-tainted tobacco leaves and cotton bales
Shrouded in tight braids of hate's acrid air

While above...

Above were only your father's cries of mercy
Filling the grit-dense clouds
As Jim Crow rode the thunder
Looking down to make more the same
More swaddling to construe miscreant

Still

Painfully

Some of us
Considering history
Peer skyward
See the many blind eyes
Instead of stars
And remind ourselves
The past always sends forward its remains
To be a haunting presence
Helping us see
What consciousness is truly looking at

To have eyes in the back of one’s head would be a plus

But realistically…

Your eyes need to be a spinning axis

So...

For those who would champion deportation of immigrants

Let not the historic past of the African American plight be forgotten

Go ahead,

Try and pick a safe place

A place that lets your eyes and ears relax

With the actual ability to see and hear humanity

Attempt to exercise moments of compassion and grace.

Such is a difficult task for many American citizens

Given the country is about to live in a militaristic age of chance

Threatening so many tosses of loaded dice

Best we “watch our six”