Sometimes we fight for the wrong reasons

and people die.

It makes me sad when I think about injustice. Attending the festival in Olustee today brings up mixed feeling for me. I am proud to be a Southerner. I am proud to be a Floridian. I am not proud of the way African Americans have been treated here. I've felt this way all my life. It's just been an inherent feeling for me. It has always given me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. We are all SO much more alike than we are different.

I am a word person. I LOVE language. I love the way words sound. I love the way they feel in my mouth. I love to hear people with different accents speak. So then, when I see words in Latin or French or Spanish or English and compare the similarities between the words, it makes me wonder even more why we insist on being different. Sharing something as basic and necessary as language, the very way we communicate, should cause wonder. It should inspire kinship. Yet, even still today it causes us to fight for the wrong reasons. And people still die.

Friday night and warm friends...

I guess I love Friday nights. It's the end of a work week, my family is usually home, and it's amazingly relaxing. As the kids have gotten older, time spent at home is slowly decreasing. They have friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, dances, jobs and so it goes. My daughter still wants to watch "Lion King" with us. That makes me happy. My son still tells me his stories. That too makes me happy. It's 35 degrees here now. My daughter made homemade bread. I live a blessed life.

Poems

OK, so pretty much poetry makes me happy. I was never much of a poetry fan until college. It is SUCH a release. I'm trying to make my little angels understand that...it's one area of English where there really, honestly are no wrong answers. They're supposed to recite a poem from memory on Wednesday. My Valentine's Day gift to them! :) So, my Valentines gift to you, a couple of mine. I hope you get to spend Valentine's Day with the ones you love. Enjoy!

Last Words
I wanted him to know I understand.
I tasted
the crabapple rage.
I smelled
the mocking isolation
Were God's eyes open to our heartbreak?
My emotions appear as
worn words
on serious white paper.
Yours spill out
in brash, splashy color
on stylish canvas.
Starry Night Vincent
Exquisite.
Wrapped in blue darkness,
the steeple closed its eyes.
God did too.
What eternity do we face?
You and I share a black-cum-gray world.
Players in a tragedy.
Your paintings of anguished release.
My muddled words
fill simply empty air.
We don't belong.
I am sorry for your fight with Gauguin.
I am sorry I missed the train.
I toil with the heaviness of the wheatfield
crows that terrify me.
Dr. Gachet thought you were doing well.
I made it to you Vincent.
If only you had held tighter
to those spiraling tress you painted at Saint-Remy.
I understand the sunflowers now.
They answered for us both.

Dripping a Valiant Death

You watch quietly.

Flickering light.

Billowing.

Flame like an old lady's fingers.

Fiery life's blood drips like tears.

How sad to feel

your body waning.

Each drop steals a bit more.

Scent of wildflowers settling

dim as twilight

Still as a sated lover.

coffee warm.

Flaming, but without malice.

Burning, but not destructive.

Silently knowing your benefit to me

is death to you.

whisper hot words

guide a young man's hands.

Dauntless now. Skin shed.

Your loftiest aspiration to serve.

Gallant light, breathe your last.

Wilt away.