Bawlamer in the news
There is a hand at the end of your strong right arm,
use it
to soothe
a brow
an intersection
a city
with a sorrowful and determined
soul growing
out of twisted racial roots,
soothe with a human touch that knows
the color of your skin matters and also does not,
East side, West side matters and also does not,
soothe by shaking justice out of the chambers of
law and rule, institution and policy,
watch them crumble.
Then remediate every sliver and speck, damn the cost,
it’s the cost-of-not-doing all along,
breathing in that old lead paint
that has brought us right here
in Lady Day’s centennial year.
April 29, 2015
Juneteenth
On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation,
Union soldiers brought the Good News to the still-enslaved of Galveston, Texas
It was years before I learned how much there was to mourn
on my birthday – the 79th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination.
In this 150th anniversary year even the Sunday comics run
a version of the story.
So I was all set to celebrate the 150th Juneteenth
in Baltimore, where I’ve heard hope rise, voices join in song along
with steam rising from summer asphalt.
But south of here,
rusty trickles of water stain the white-washed
bricks, Mother Emmanuel weeps again
for her murdered children
and we cast about,
sorrowful and determined,
for her dignity and theirs.
June 19, 2015
© Sara Eisenberg
Sara Eisenberg is a healer, clinical herbalist, and writer in Baltimore, Maryland. She fell into poetry to solve certain life problems that did not yield to narrative, and found writing poetry more akin to entering the dance studio free to move in any direction, plane, quality, and likewise requiring muscle, grace, skill. She is not often given to occasional poems, but sometimes the community organizer in her is called to speak. She has a BA in French, and an MS in Herbal Medicine from Maryland University of Integrative Health (formerly TAI Sophia Institute), where she continues to teach. She incorporates poetry into her work with clients at her online home, http://www.alifeofpractice.com.
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