He made this panel
for all the lost, unknown, and unloved people who died of AIDS.
I woke this morning feeling
very ill. I sort-of lay there, sweating,
and waited it out on the bed. Around
0930, I came alive again. Alive is a
good way to go into a day.
When digging around for
that lost poem, I was very surprised at the number of poems and essays I wrote
in 2010. Unfortunately, many of them
have a heavy, negative weight to them. This piece is another from the same era but
not one that ends negatively.
BIOGRAPHY
I was told I was needed at
my branch library
how strange then to be
left standing
speechless, rebuffed,
unwanted
in an age when library
funds are cut
not needed to volunteer.
I’ve always been
immediately
grabbed,
volunteered,
put to work scrubbing pots
for Father Joe’s homeless,
picking lunch from shelves
of donations
or out of the back of
trucks
for those long lines of
humans
wrapped around the
building.
Once I copied things ad
nauseam
sorting, recording, moving
strings of papers and
boxes
those items of historical
importance
that escape me now
but were significant once.
There were other years
I dodged senators and
cameras
wet politicians, canoes and
other irritants
while helping to save the
slough
while digging ditches
while hand writing
invitations
for those wine and cheese
things
that never pulled in the
constituents.
There was a while when I
was
more concerned with
working on my own 15
minutes of fame
than of saving the world.
There were also moments
while schlepping mountains
of fabrics or
sewing machines, notions,
and other
serious stuff
endlessly,
for the AIDS Quilt,
when I wanted to quit.
Now I find myself shelving
books
at last,
first for a non-profit
sorting endless piles of books
and clothes,
things and stuff, items,
gear, effects, donations.
Now I’m at the library,
home at last,
taking no prisoners
with my boxes of books.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
- Himself: Much of the morning spent on a Cadillac, a Mexican motorcycle, and a Freightliner.
- Myself: Copying my old writings to a new hard drive. The old hard drive is full….the new is very empty even with all that stuff I just dropped on it.
- Photo: Mine.
- Bald Eagle Cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b2dUgK6VV4
- Reading: A very old JA Jance that got marked as a Young Adult and shouldn’t have been. I never read it before.
- Gratitude’s:
Well done with the poem — very readable and laudable too.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I feel it too long.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me sad to think of people being unloved and dying of AAIDS. I hope times have changed!
ReplyDeleteI hope so too.
DeleteVindicated, at last. Long last.
ReplyDeleteunfortunately, books spark joy............
ReplyDeleteSo many people die, even without the AIDs crisis, that we fail to love and mourn, just by an accident of their life and a wrong decision. So sorry about your illness, start a diary on this because I think this might be an infection...don't let it linger.
ReplyDeleteI too hope you don't take that ill feeling too lightly.
ReplyDeleteI worked with a young woman who contracted AIDS from her husband, a long distance truck driver who frequently enjoyed Lot Lizards. What a terrible disease that still attacks men, and women, children. Bless you for doing your part to call attention to this disease.
Thank you.
Delete