(x = space)
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Segregation Wrecking Ball
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Separate but equal?
I think I am quoting
Equality
Some more equal than others
I have heard this
The bigot says
I want a line between us
A barrier
Easily, I want to separate
Every part of my life
Into what I want
Whatever
Due to my boxed sense of things
Some kind of superiority
Tragically
Closeted inside
Maybe waiting for a
Monolithic
Rally
x
Sigh
(or moan or growl)
Those of us who never understood
The world from above
Is yes
Without borders
How
We are one blue-green marble
Rolling in relation
To the rest
x
Segregation
Takes strange energy
Nothing at all
Like strange and wonderful
But an investment
In dreadful
In the ersatz and the eldritch
A devilish combining
To elevate
The worst of us
x
We can do so much better
And it’s easier
It’s breathing air
It’s waking up
Having meals
Walking through our days
To give each other
Without baleful thought
The time of day
The normal investment
Of our lives
In greetings
And strategies
Together
x
The normalcy
The unsung justice
Of equality
Without the need to say it
From having it
So long
x
Hope for today
And in the generations
No separation
Normal restraint
For being human
Normal modesty
x
A delight in who we are
Without thinking
Who we are
x
Not colorblind
But colorful
Tropical and polar worlds
Temperate zones
Everywhere we are
The normal grace
Through which
We live and love and
Have our being
A liturgy of ages
Let the ages fit with such
Actions and such virtues
Start now
x
We have to learn
What the future
Will not have to
x
Except in learning about us
And what happened next
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C L Couch
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Photo by Resource Database on Unsplash
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clcouch123 
February 18, 2023 at 5:06 pm
Who wise and powerful. So much here to sit with. To talk with. Thank you!
February 18, 2023 at 5:12 pm
You’re welcome–and thank you! It’s a tragically unreasonable situation, and we must (we can) do better.
February 18, 2023 at 10:18 pm
I remember segregation from when I was a kid. We moved from southern California, where it didn’t exist, to Arkansas when they were desegregating the schools there. I found the cultural shift so confusing.
February 19, 2023 at 10:31 pm
You moved through two hugely different places and policies. In Pittsburgh regarding schools, I don’t think there was official segregation, though frankly many parts of town were racially separated, anyway (our part being white). You lived in a famously segregated place. Yes, that must have been weird.