radiant graves

 v

RADIANT GRAVES

 

On Moonlight Eve

the graves sparkle.

The dead arise

to celebrate their lives.

 

And during pandemic

our conversations pivot

evermore

on the unknown, the unsaid and unsung, the unkindness of histories.

 

The dead have powers

the living do not imagine.

 

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            April 12, 2021

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas, Kwanzaa, 2018

Blog 12.19.2017 CHRISTMAS I have a reason for not being anxious to celebrate Advent and Christmas Day.   Sixty years ago, my father died on December 25.   Fifty-nine years ago, my favorite uncle died a few days before Christmas.   I do want other people to be happy, but I am most at peace when Christmas has gone with the snow, the sunshine or rain, the wind.   I still say "Merry Christmas."   The only genuine happiness I experience, however, is listening to Handel's "The Messiah" and a few songs I've treasured since childhood,   attending Midnight Mass, having home-made fruitcake   after Mass, and eating a special meal with relatives on the excessively commercialized holiday. KWANZAA Umoja ---Decide with whom you should seek unity. Kujichagulia --Expand the terms of engagement for 2018. Ujima ---Cooperate on a project with people you can trust. Ujamaa --Be frugal.   Shop selectively. Nia ---Remember ou...
Read more

implacable violence, part one

Implacable Violence, Part One The death of Senator John McCain quickens our   interest in how to deal with contemporary   narratives of life history.   McCain's touchstone story pertains to American conservative values, the consequences of trauma,   military and public service, violence, and   a sense of honor.   Barack Obama's differently remarkable narratives direct attention to the absence of military service, class and caste violence, the audacity of hope, centralist values, and diversity in the history of "race."   Narratives about McCain and Obama stand in noteworthy contrast to future narratives about Donald Trump, stories that may place ego in the foreground as they unfold tales of sexism, constipated values,     inadvertent racism, the violence of capitalism, sleight of mouth, and avoidance of military service.   Ego, self-fashioning, and boldness are apparent in the three sets of narrative, but excess lynches the Trump set...
Read more

DuBois and Black Reconstruction

  PROPAGATION OF HISTORY AND FAITH   DuBois, W. E. B.   Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 . (1935; New York: The Free Press, 1998).   Dr. DuBois knew what was problematic about his revisionist history in Black Reconstruction .   He made his intentions clear in his note "To The Reader" (December 1934).   His ideal audience consisted of people who believed a black person in America "and in general is an average and ordinary human being, who under given environment develops like other human beings…"   DuBois was not trying to convince those who regarded " the Negro as a distinctly inferior creation, who can never successfully take part in modern civilization…"   Indeed, the Negro, in my mind at least, is the chief architect of civilization.   Is it only a matter of accident that Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-Education of the Negro was published   two years before Black Reconstruction ?   No.   It wasn't an accide...
Read more