To Allen;
If you could see America now I often wonder what you would think. The materialism and technology and bureaucracy on the brink
of war torn nations, that forget of the wars
that make them the live ones.
And if you could see how violence has spread like swine flu
shootings in schools and churches and concerts
terrorists born an American.
And if you could see the earth-soul now breathing heavy, it’s oceans clogged with tooth-brushes and straws and plastic grocery-bags.
The fires that chase us, the mudslides and water-rushes,
and could you believe that politicians and people think it all to be a hoaxs?
I bet you could.
And if you could see the rumbling mouths all around.
No one knows who is true in speaking, and anyways it’s so hard to listen when all you hear are shouts.
And Black folks fill prisons still, just yesterday a noose was hung. Just yesterday someone had said, ‘there has never been a Black person lynched that didn’t deserve it’.
And in the age of social media, a phenomenon so foreign to you. People now sink away in their cell-phones. There are no birthday-cards. Just instagram posts. It would inrage you, I’m sure.
The separation of the middle class, from the 1%, continues to climb as the rich get rich and still get nothing yet.
Music has turned. Now to be successful you must also be sexually attractive. Let’s just say Jim Croce and his nose would not have made it in the industry.
And spirituality seekers stretch their visions far and wide, Yoga is practiced, however it’s appropriated by white wealthy women, who can pay for overpriced studios and overpriced yoga pants.
Meditation is encouraged, not scowled upon. Something I know you faced, in the clean-cut, evangelical 50s and the spiritually and racially tense 60s.
It seems also that to be queer in sexuality is at its peak of acceptance thus far in America’s life. Hopefully it will continue it’s glorious rise. Gender also is being put under microscope. No longer defined as inherent to our biology, rather it is a forced social order of things. Designed to keep women down and trans people out. I live a great life because I was not born ten years before I was born.
Women are collecting and shouting more loudly now than ever. Many powerful men have been fired, and hopefully more is to come. Harvey Weinstein is a mongrel, not a movie god.
And stories again have proven to be the most powerful weapon
in the arsenal of political and social prominence.
And you are still read. And I look up at the stars to try and find you. With God, with hope, with love, with optimism, and with humbleness.