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The Peace Bridge It was yesterday, right? When she asks me if I'll walk with her past plentiful, penniless artists, with arthritic Panthers and smiling ex-SNIC-ers to sing hymns and hold hands to cross a bridge, I tell her no, 'cause I've already forgotten the rhythms for marching. I've already forgotten the rhythms for marching! She'd never heard my father's voice say that the revolution would be televised, and that people would sit around and fantasize, in detail, about the train that was comin', and and that nobody'd need a ticket like I had, and even if her hands freeze while I sleep, even if I never held hands or hitched a ride, she still can't tell me what James Brown says so loud! Before she even asks, I've already forgotten the rhythms for marching. I've already forgotten the rhythms for marching! I still sit angry I'm not a Talented Tenth man yet, , sardonically chortle when my newly shaved ARA friend mentions King as a God and Evers as a saint. I mention justice Marshall, and he tells me he liked Slim Shady's LP better. No, no! I've forgotten the rhythms, so let me sit. I won't tell her I can't remember 'cause I can still talk about not being able to sleep after watching that movie, that actor's beautiful face restraining all but a single tear and only getting an Oscar for his trouble, about Dad again, who clenched his jaw when I mentioned Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in front of Gra'ma, and nobody tried to laugh it off. I still don't remember the beat. There Dad was again! I can't remember if it's supposed to be a be-bop step or trot, or slow like blues in summer and just as thick, but he told me to wear mittens and remember pride, that the pace would find its way to me and now she asks me, but the pace still doesn't come I can't remember; I still can't, no, 'cause the histories are real, but the war wasn't felt with my eyes and my ears couldn't have seen that bridge in '64. They've absorbed second-hand memories. . . and I know her hands will freeze, and her voice and head will sway when she feels "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," but I stil. . . |
Additional Notes:
1. re: (title) The Peace Bridge crosses the Great Miami river through downtown Dayton, OH. A few years after the Civil Rights Act of '64, it was dedicated to those who crossed that bridge suring the March on Washington earlier in the decade. As you probably guessed, there's an annual ceremony in which people trace the Daytton route through town to its original convening point, the old court house.
2 re: "Talented Tenth" was a term used by WEB Du Bois to speak of those intellectuals and professionals whose duty was to bring their culture to national equality.
3 re: ARA (Anti-Racist Action) is the name for a set of agressive youth groups whose agenda, among other things, is to "rid the world of the fascists and speak out for the underrecognized and under-represented faces of the nation."
4 "That movie" is Glory, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say that. . .
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