Just For A Brief Moment In Time

As spirits may wane

As hope seems to be ebbing away

As despair tries to gain traction

As TV and cable personalities try to compare the number of COVID-19 deaths to the number of vehicular, flu, accidental deaths, shootings etc. these pseudo opinion-makers fail to understand that individual or small group deaths are specific, often singular and random tragic situations.

They fail to realize COVID deaths permeate neighborhoods, large group residential structures, the poor and healthcare disenfranchised, gig workers and in a quiet and unseen manner puts everyone, every neighborhood, every region, every country at peril. Such TV folks who exist and depend on ratings and audience size need to stop questioning why there is apprehension and anxiety throughout the world.

[Society needs to re-assess its reverence for personalities who do not know what they are talking about because they are financially and class removed from average people and the communities that serve us.]

Just for a brief moment in time…

As political motivated selfishness and greed rears its ugly hydra-like ways,

We have to grasp and realize there are far more positive, inspirational, and generosity of spirit behaviors that define who we are as individuals and as a collective people.

We are more than the naysayers and purveyors of misplaced political actions that are not consistent with the graciousness embedded in the global family.

So finds ways to bolster your spirit.

Look for examples of hope.

Capture the courageous, giving and embracing spirit of people who evidence the sunshine after the rain and the light that is always at the end of the tunnel.

Embrace poets and other creatives.

Be Fierce.

Be Strong.

Be Giving.

Be Joyous.

Be…

Who you are and who you want to be.

And Stay that way.

***

Today’s featured presenter resides in California.

Cali! Cali! Cali!

Ashunda Norris [photo credit:  Marcus Jackson]

Ashunda Norris is a fierce feminist, filmmaker, poet and teacher living in Los Angeles. Her honors include fellowships from Cave Canem, the New York State Summer Writer's Institute and a residency at The Lemon Tree House. Ashunda’s film work has screened internationally, including Nairobi, Kenya and Kampala, Uganda. A proud alumna of Howard University and Paine College, the artist also holds MFAs in Poetry and Screenwriting. Ashunda’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in La Presa, The Adroit Journal, Bayou Magazine, Huffington Post, and elsewhere.

                                               Pam Grier Poolside Los Angeles, 1975 

                        I eat Sun(s)

                        watch me glimmer 

                        peep praising of self

                        subject of my own radar

                        this wig hides nothing

                        more than it reveals

                        let me just say this  

                        a bitch got it together

                        perfectly parted lips

                        hazy eyes behind 

shades of fire

                        a waist untied by eager hands

                        just hanging side of breast

                        tender to touch of luminance

                        gold merely a reflection

                        I’m goddess come to earth

                        live on saturday

                        a blunt dripping

                        a knock in the back of your

                        throat when the song come on

                                                    lowndes county, georgia 1918

                                                                 for mary turner

                                    i left folsom's bridge the night they seared 

                                    my skin with gasoline & white dreams

                                    to this day oak trees make me pause in flight

                                    i been dignified but now my self worth                                    

                                    swelters above sassy moonlit shadows

                                    i was bound hands & feet flipped upside down                        

                                    them flames coiled me til i was a smug

                                    inferno swallowed a thousand bullets for my

                                    pride taught a good lesson with molten 

                                    mania & a dying womb                                    

                                    crushed into georgia clay beneath her mama's roasted

                                    head when a passel of pink pale brutes taste

                                    blood somebody need calling besides that god

                                    they serve a failure in bounds for sure

                                    my love for hazel cost me earth realms 

                                    but i'd begin again with the same fate

                                    if i get to jet through split seconds to be

                                    a cosmic onyx for little Black lady bugs

                                    sunless without my blazing baptism of black heat

* * * 

April is Jazz Appreciation Month. Listen to the music. Feel uplifted by the creativity of the musicians and vocalists. And in time, support the jazz clubs…when the lockdown ceases. 

Stay safe. Be well.

~ bill

aaduna - an online adventure with words and images - a globally read, multi-cultural, and diverse online literary and visual arts journal established in 2010.  Visit us at www.aaduna.org where we put measurable actions to our words.

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