booksartyoume

'MLK' timothy r gates, 1/16/2009

in five years
my president murdered
my marching friend murdered
JFK
(my teacher came in the room, that day,
said, 'the President kicked the bucket!
- years later before i got the force of his unrequited bitterness)
MLK
(Poor People's March lost, that day,
a Free-man, left them black and white leaders
marching by themselves without us)
innocence long lost,
confirmed
told, as young boy,
'some of our best friends are black people!'
i asked,
'who? where?
Surprised that day,
my head didn't fly across
our
white
dining room.
in my bedroom, shared with two younger brothers,
dreams floated
Jesus wasn't
black or white,
didn't have blue eyes, or red hair, or fair skin
our savior was
ruddy, dove eyed, a Jew of Middle East living
funny,
a Jew was worshiped in my
white
house,
home where
blacks were fine in their place
Jew was a word better known as an
adjective
funny,
this Jew
became
red, white and blue.
Dream included me,
a frightened little white boy,
thought i was a light Martin,
believed fear would give me speech.
Fallen daddies, mommies,
presidents and preachers,
(between the moisture, i see
them in the night's stars, us)
veritas resurrexit!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++===============================*****************
The Dream of my youth, 'We shall overcome some day,' is alive. It is, as they say, still being lived out 'one baby step at a time.' When I was fourteen years of age Martin Luther King was murdered, and I was crushed. In Stark County the hatred between folks was covered well behind the temples that most people attended Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, but it was as real as the attempted sentiments sung in the spiritual songs of all the traditions that would meet weekly. And for those few that didn't meet in some tradition of spirituality, amazinging, most had no problem resurrecting the 'mark of Cain' myths as justification for their own perpetation of hatred. Strange, years later, about a dozen years or so ago, a local minister of African American heritage reworked this hatred's story, but this time, according to him in the 'original version,' that the 'mark' was that of Anglo-hues. Bigotry is hatred no matter where it comes.
In my teens there were never more than forty to fifty people at most 'race' or 'peace' rallies held in Stark County. I remember when Dick Gregory came and spoke at Timken HS one evening and that's all the more people that attended. Yet, as with the nation, the few did make a difference. More amazing, these few made a difference in our lifetimes.
As a boy, a teen, I only saw the prejudice and bigotry of my elders, their blindness. I did not see my own towards them. Why? I was a youth, lived some life that no youth should ever be imposed, yet did not live sufficient to see that most of us, thankfully, do not practice the foolishness of our words, and that our practice is often actually better than the prejudice and or bigotry we've learned without any necessary culpability of our own at the time. To-day, I see in myself different forms of prejudice and or bigotry, and just the moment that I believe that I'm free of them I find another form. Akin to cancer, we all have these cells in our bodies, and only some people are killed by them. Others are able to fight them off when they do raise their ugly heads.
For me, this-day, I still believe that 'Beauty does save the world,' the beauty of the honest practice of beholding the intuitive innate beauty of others, as well as ourselves, before my eyes. For me, this-day, there is only one way to affirm any incarnation of deity, that is by the practice of loving the God who is incarnate in the person before my face, especially the one that I least desire to show a little non-abstract love. To love and hang with those that I like is no difficult task, to paraphrase the extended Beatitudes, but to love like what we call God is to love those that hate us and perhaps want nothing to do with us, perhaps even less than we do with them. It is amazing, to me, how it is easy to see the bigotry and or prejudice that I hate in others. Seeing it in myself, this is not so easy. One day at a time, one breath at a time, I, on some days, choose to live out the dream that is for all. I still believe.
grateful,
timothy