Somewhere Between

I Am Eve     12" x 12" Collage Encaustic     by Crystal Marie

Somewhere Between

Some days 

it is hard not to lose hope

hope that this country will find its way

back from the great divide

hope that civility will be restored

hope that a cure will ever be found

for COVID 

or systems built on white supremacy –

the virus called racism

hope that truth will hold as effectively

as a politics lies

hope that justice will ever be served

hope that equality will finally be won

hope that reparations will ever be paid

by the government for their crimes against

the brown who’s land we invade

and the black who built it with

blood on their backs

by the church for its complicity 

and extolling of shame 

for its twisting of the word 

and the use of God’s name

enabling a man’s life 

to be valued less than a mule 

and an ox could repay

even less for a woman with no babe to be laid

But hope is a thin slip of a broth

to offer the poor

along with a bone called blessed

for kids who live in a cage

to cut their first teeth

without compassion or touch 

or a parent to praise 

no mask 

nor blanket made of cotton or wool

not even a toothbrush 

or lawyer or school

hope is a luxury only the rich can afford

it placates the giver 

but seldom the worn

Yet to not-hope is a non-remedy

to not-hope is to stay hidden 

to let the fire grow cold 

and the water stay stagnant 

to not-hope is a disease 

of the spirit that feeds 

on the lost cause 

a black hole 

no light can extinguish

to not-hope is to stand 

outside the arena 

while the church bells name 

the latest loss of a man 

who had no choice in the game

and the voices cry out 

for the lives of the slain

Somewhere between hope

and the not-hope

tubers sprout and reach 

up the wall of the kitchen

as if the purpose of this five-dollar bag

was not in the way it would nourish

the body

but in the way it would flourish 

the mind to imagine

with its red arms that climbed

up the back of the cabinet

and pressed with its might

through caulk somehow holding

a synthesis of memory 

of ancestors 

working the ground

riding the waves

chained to the walls 

left in the shade

like that five-dollar bag 

of vegetable root

not to be nourished 

but held down with a boot

The same ancestors once danced

to a rhythm they knew

from the knowledge of freedom

not learned from a song

but endowed by Creator

whose laughter was worn

with colorful pride

a garment of praise

a tent that stretched wide

freedom which fear

could never contain

before bended knee

or knee-on-neck became 

heritage 

in a land drunk with disdain

These ancestors told tales of

the great day of rapture

when working in fields

one had been taken 

and one still remained

not a thing to look forward

but a curse from their past

wake oh ye sleeper

and gather your light

we search for the valley 

of Somewhere Between

where words become actions

and actions are seeds

from the fruit of that freedom

the ancestors sing

To hope without ploughing 

is to not-hope

to pray without reaching

is to not-pray

to love without freeing

is to not-love

and the lifeblood of the rhythm 

of freedom

cannot be found 

in the feasting on stories 

of the very fine people 

on both sides

and the passing of laws 

to eliminate evil

in the land where evil 

has been given a throne

and a scepter of lies

meant to divide 

mother from son

In the valley of Somewhere Between 

there is a tree where the ancestors sing