Listening to a deeper way
thinking how to outsmart adversity
without dying and losing his soul
he walked away from the juke joint
late Saturday evening/early Sunday morning
moving in communion with his third self
and the embrace of Grandmother Moon’s silver-gray arms

Poor
shy
scared
colored boy
emotionally intelligent
physically strong
a tender-hearted thinker
the outside insider
Raised on corn, beans, squash
rabbit, fish
his mother’s biscuits, her collard greens
her teacakes and pecan candy

Passing the cotton patch
in the afternoon of the next day
he watched Iretha Swinson stand upright and blow
between its endless rows and bolls of whiteness
Her idealized beauty against the piney-woods horizon
caught his attention in a way
that leavened his uncertainty
and brought to mind the Mississippi tonality
of Jerry Butler’s floated vocalizing
Farther along, he started to disbelieve
the lies they told in the aftermath of each murder
knowing that said and done
neither were the whole truth nor gospel either
but empty words and aggressive actions
weapons for making extreme intergroup conflict possible
and sincere intergroup harmony impossible
Even farther along, he asked himself for the eleventh dozen time
how best to make it in a world without reverence 
for blood running warm in human veins
and the chorus of ancestral voices took him to task once more:
“Normality is a paved road, Roijun2. It’s comfortable to walk 
but no flowers grow on it. The day will come, my son, when you have
to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life
or make a virtue of your peculiarities. Care about what other people think
and you will be their prisoner”

Tonight, sitting in the presence of his memories
he recalls balancing the need in him to be alone 
with spending time in the company of like-minded others
during which fellowship he neither pruned the greenery of his spirit
nor withheld the multitudes inside him
but displayed each characteristic openly in childlike mode
And, smiling at himself, he tells himself 
each explanation given to justify the insane acts of life-taking
was/is an inseparable part of a procedure they always follow without thinking 
of the consequences
Rocking in rhythm with this thought path
he contemplates George Perry Floyd Jnrs’ murder
from the standpoint of old folks’ wisdom
whereupon the chorus of ancestral voices gather around
and counsel him slowly in a mellow tone:
“Considering that it’s a man’s, man’s, man’s world
and domination and subordination are attributes of power
and Donald John Trump won the election in year 2016
and love, wisdom, and compassion are in need today
who is global enemy number one of humankind?”
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