THERE’S A POEM HERE TO WRITE

About literation.

About whole nations being mapped into plaits. About a new Brooklyn and the old Haiti. Native sons with dark ladies double-dutching behind the drum circle.

Yet someone recently asked me about freedom.

And all—all I could recall was that Sunday afternoon I saw our babies fingerprinting on the “door” of a boarded-up row home. When they told the tree, ‘not today’ and wore colors just days after mourning. They had a song that didn’t require the finest acrylics. They had a song that cried the tears of David and Paul.

Not even see-saws could keep them down. Sun comes around and they on the stoop, (shoop shoop) and loving without a canvas.

Man, that was freedom. Even if just for the day. May we all remember some of the child-like ways. Sheep-like days seeking God with a thirst for the lamb. Skipping rocks and hopping fences on the way to the stand. May each hood in USA feel like the promised land.

In this poem,

Or the next.