Shihan’s “Father’s Day”.
“…trying to find beauty in the ugliness of it all, and we are all trying to escape that darkness or nothingness in the never-ending story of the human condition…”
“…Daddy, do you still love me? I thought I die when she asked me that. My heart fell like - I ain’t got a metaphor for that. It just hurts.”
Twenty Years
It’s been twenty years now but I still remember the smell of death
I still recall the bright hall that led to his room
the fall of my heart as the news of his passing flooded my soul
It’s been twenty years now but only a few since the hurt stopped
bleeding and my bruises reduced
I can still feel my pillow wet from lonely tears
as I wondered if his return would ever be realized
It’s been twenty years now but nothing can replace what I lost
looking for him
Nothing has returned from what we lost searching for his leftovers
in the wastelands of Newark’s streets
It’s been twenty years now but silence is the best way to talk about this
with his widow
and nothing can begin to help me understand why staying in hell
was better than leaving
It’s been twenty years of growth in my heart to love and to be loved
It’s been twenty years of striving to secure my identity not in what people
said but in how I reflect my purpose
It’s been twenty times harder to be silent and
Twenty times louder than what other ears are used to
It’s been my hope that twenty years later I would fulfill my promise
to never live like him and never love like him
and never leave like him
and never hit like him and
never Never NEVER NEVER be anything close to him
But after twenty years I still love him
Childhood pain creeps into adult creases in your lives
that you never took the time to seal
Life’s lessons are learned the hard way and most effectively so
but doesn’t it suck to have to hurt while your age is still singular?
It’s been twenty years and this is the first poem written about him
It’s been twenty years now
and my future twenty years never looked so bright. Why?
Because his story has been my teacher and my destiny is disconnected
So there is no curse on my generation
I’m a creation of two tragedies fashioned in scolding suffering
A glorified remnant that will only reproduce freedom and love
and give life to every word that paints pictures of my youthful death
It’s been twenty years and there is no regret
-Me, writing about my Daddy.
The man that I am today has been shaped by triumph and tragedy and I thank God for it all.
This weekend, my Daddy would have turned 70 years old. He loved his family so much, but too often he made choices that created a disease with no cure and a thirst that was never satisfied. Both of these led him away from his family and eventually took his life. I agree with the truth in Daniel Beaty’s piece “Knock Knock” that no matter what our fathers did…or didn’t do…we can be better.
Mos Def using his voice to speak up about the situations that prevail in the world today (via Okayplayer)
Government-produced (U.S. War Relocation Authority) film attempting to defend the massive internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II
Our governor has declared April Confederate History Month, Child Abuse Prevention Month, Donate Life Month and Financial Literacy Month plus declared April 18-24 Crime Victims Rights Week. Local news tonight only covered Confederate History Month and each report I saw stirred in me the usual reflections of Virgina’s difficult past. Reading the declaration through my usual lens, I was expecting to connect to that old pain that is never that far away. But as I read, I agreed that “this defining chapter in Virginia’s history should not be forgotten”. And that we should understand how our history “has led to our present”. I connected with that hope which overshadows all fear.
The Civil War was a pivotal time in our history and during this Sesquicentennial Anniversary I’m looking forward to the conversations we’ll have about how so many things have changed while some are just as they have always been.
I do not have VH1 so I didn’t get a chance to watch the show this weekend. Like so many others, Soul Train definitely was the place every Saturday where I learned how to “get down”.
One of the greatest, Al Green, is doing his thing here singing “Here I Am”. I love it when they take it to church around 3:44
