This is new

12 April 2020

 

Time

Is that the engine of change?

Is it time?

How do we change

as a person

as a society

My changes

slowing down

not just physically

due to age

i.e. time

but psychologically

with thought

with letting go

letting go

of judgment

of guilt

of anxiety

of worry

Is that what anxiety is?

Worry

Forecasting doom and gloom

Forecasting

Unnamed unknowable

Fear

Yet there is an ongoing crisis

Pandemic of COVID 19

And

Global warming

Consuming the globe

with various levels of understanding

and reaction

 

How to be more aware

Awake

Alive

To watch a bee circling a shrub

Listen for birds

Squawking

Distant hum of traffic

Sitting on a balcony

On a no street

A slow street

A street where

Three cars pass in a day

More birds pass than cars

Accepting that life is beyond control

Yet not beyond action

 

Pleased

with a new found ability

to sit and look

and listen

without doing

anything

This is new, different

 

Loss and grieving

I am in Canberra Australia
Far far from the USA
I grew up in Kansas City
Moved to the San Francisco Bay
Listening to the music
of Soul, Motown
Thinking of that music
today
The hope
The love
The promise
Otis Redding
Aretha Franklin
Nina Simone
The Temptations
Stevie Wonder
Diana Ross
Ray Charles
Smokey Robinson
The Temptations
Sam Cooke
The Supremes
Lou Rawls
Percy Sledge
Margin Gaye
Tina Turner
Gladys Knight and the Pips
(Partial list)
Listening today
on YouTube
after reading about overwhelming
numbers of deaths of African Americans
in the USA
during the COVID 19 pandemic
Mourning the loss
Listening to the music on YouTube
Remembering the joy
in an African American café
in Oakland California
November of 2008
The election of Barack Obama
44th President of the USA
People crying
shouting
dancing
singing
saying “I wish my mother was alive today”
People believing
“A Change is Gonna Come”
(Sam Cooke song)
and yet
and yet
Who is dying today
in the USA
in the pandemic?

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