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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4249 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Aubade (In the Beginning) M. Kathryn Black I wore a long red cotton dress made in India in the beginning, when things were new. I hid my shame in baskets because I was young; I was afraid and didn't know I was beautiful. God had spoken to you on the train, and angels knew you in Grand Central Station and approached you on the Staten Island Ferry. You taught me these things and my vision opened. When I'd been young you had marched with Martin Luther King Jr., put your life on the line. You demonstrated against the Vietnam War; you went to Saigon, got scrutinized by the CIA. You were brave and I idolized you; I didn't know why you wanted my friendship. I was ten years younger, unproven, idealistic. Healthy and strong, in the prime of adulthood, you never smoked or poisoned yourself. Your two year old daughter was taller than most, and she was a blue-eyed beauty as well, precocious, intelligent beyond her peers. The kindness and love you had for her was an example to all mothers then, a blessing to watch. When I had a boyfriend who broke up with me you felt sympathy, said he was not man enough for a woman like me, I was comforted by your loyalty. Perhaps if you had stayed East your fall would never have come, but you went West, married an abusive man. Your keening dissappointment swallowed you whole. In the decades that followed you never fully returned, but fell deeper and deeper until you became a traitor to yourself. |
