Stories of People Past and Present

In the early morning hours there are several books here on my desk.  There's the Bible, Conversations with God, the Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Confessions of a Guilty Bystander, The Death of Expertise, Spare the Kids, Reconciliation Reconsidered, and many others including Bioethics, Medical Family Therapy, and God of the Oppressed. It is a wide ranging collection of printed material.

The one that stands out today is Pete Daniel's Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights. I'll review this book later. Here's one for now.  It is an academic and historical perspective against which the stories I have heard can be compared.

With those books as prompts, these words came to mind:

                                   Stories of People Past and Present

Tuesday is here.
Is it just another day?
What happened to Monday?
I thought it was here to stay.

Wednesday will come tomorrow

That is surely for real.
What will be done that day
Or is it for someone to steal?

There are many we have met,

Their stories fill our souls.
We must tell the truth
Much is still left untold.

She is a hero,

She has survived some painful ordeals.
She tells us the truth about life
Even though it’s been more than unreal.

He is a legend

Over there in the southeast
I learned more than I can tell you
For him life was a big old beast.

His single wide sits way out there

On a lonely lane of sandy loam.
He still mourns for his wife who died
He’s alone in his place called home.

All that they wanted

Was to raise that corn and wheat
When the USDA came a knockin’
They knew they’d be hard to beat.

It takes all manner of folk

To fight this ugly war
Righteousness stands on the hills
Looking on from a far.

“Pay day some day”

I heard that old farmer say.
While the old keep getting older
They still pray for a brand new day.

Not many of them prevailed

In the courts across the land.
The thieves made off into the night
Leaving the farmers with an empty hand.

They put their faith in God

Their belief in America was right
The law may be color blind,
Their land was stole in the darkness of the night.

They appeared very resolved,

Strong and determined they stood
Until the auctioneer’s gavel sounded
They’d lost their land for good.

There is no doubt to me

That this system is still unfair,
Except for those who look like me
We get more than our rightful share.

We long for that day down the road

When the system turns around,
He’ll be judged by his character
And not because he’s brown.