Yikes, I gotta get back with the program!! This every other day business has to stop! Scheduling is an odd thin right now, though, so maybe I will be better at it....someday.
Regardless - we're still talking about healing community through poetry this week. This last year, i had an amazing experience in getting to watch my neighborhood come together. Being at home more, as a lot of us were, helped us to see things we didn't always get to before. It's one thin if you only see your neighbors in the evenings after work, for example, when the day has had its way with them and maybe they are tired from it, and a little grumpy. Maybe they are hungry and just want to eat, so it makes them a little surly or something. The point is, seeing them at different times of the day sometimes impacts the way we get to encounter them - because they are different at that time of day - and frankly, so are we. And that state of being gives rise to assumptions that have absolutely no bearing in facts. Those assumptions hurt our neighborhoods.
Day 10:
The Dog-Walker
i watched quietly one morning,
the boy went by,
feet shuffling,
as he led the pup for his morning ritual,
a small click-clack of claws on the pavement.
i saw him the other night, too -
the evening's repetition of the same -
and he was jovial,
light-hearted,
waved hello and smiled.
why is he so tired today?
what happened to the
bright-smiled boy?
i try a friendly hello -
it barely registers -
but i get a half-hearted wave.
if all i ever saw was the morning version,
would i care as much?
or would i not give him a thought?
Have you ever seen murals on the sides of buildings that you didn't necessarily understand? Or moreoever, murals that you COMPLETELY understood and marveled over, impressed by the artist's vision - whether it was just beautiful art or it was meant to serve as a call to action? I love murals and public art - they help forge the identity of a place, and that's important. In a way, I think they are poetic, telling the story of at least part of a place. Anyway, just before the COVID shutdowns, I was lucky enough to get to go on a mural hunt in a town I was visiting, and it really was a fascinating experience - even if it was a very cold and blustery day. Since, then, I have been more aware of the murals I encounter. Today's offering is about one I pass by regularly.
Day 11:
Mural on Plywood
dirty sidewalk holds a candle,
underneath the boarded-up facade
of a seemingly abandoned building,
and on the wood
a painting,
an expression of hope,
longing,
a search for answers,
about a girl who went missing a long time ago.
maybe they never find her - i don't know -
but her face is there,
young and alive,
part of the fabric of a community
that has lost a piece of itself -
again.
too many pieces gone, now.
too many murals that have yet to be painted,
too many stories untold,
forgotten.
but her story lives on, now,
as warning and as memory,
a saint watching over second avenue,
at the very gates of the community.
a memory,
a hope,
and the candle below the portrait,
on dirty concrete,
offering a prayer in her name.
There are too many stories of people going missing. We are so surrounded now by faces on milk-cartons and TV commercials that it's easy to ignore them simply as "the way things are." I don't know this girl's story - it happened long before I lived here. Maybe, though, that's the point: I can find out. Be more aware. Make sure this mural did its job, and that no more murals like it need to be painted.
Thanks for reading,
Me
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