Outcasts Gate Grieving | Linda Chown

---

---

Outcasts have a way of touching

When I start the night
I think Eskimo’s and seashells:
Places of open abandon
Like black sheep and the wild ones-
Outcasts have a way of touching
Those forlorn places that you hide
Beside the beauty of your mind

---

Sather Gate

Taking me higher than I was
Pairing with my pals

To fight the Knowland police
gone hard metallic-tight

The nation had, it seems, landed in Berkeley
     to see what happened

So we had to stand
up for the prize of freedom

in this small oak-saturated space.
In a small sunny circle we were

ready to face them with the side of our eyes with our 
     cavities even,
with anything.

It was just too important 
to not let them own
our souls their way.

So we leased our 
strength into music

We rejoiced in our togetherness,
In our language, which that day more than meant 
     something:

it was,
it really was
everything.

---

Versions of grieving

Grief is about a whole new trip that just keeps on 
     getting older.
Grief is how it feels to have two left feet.
Grief is how it feels to be dehydrated in your arms
Grief is how it feels to be lost
in always
Grief is though how it feels 
to be perpetually free.
Grief is the birth of a new beauty only you can see.
Red peonies and orange daisies on a spree
What a feast for the likes of me.

---

Vietnamese Faces

It seemed a day of decay
where my eyes kept 
seeing Vietnamese faces
human expression raw in dark sun
abstract fingers bleeding light
my eyes went into a past
where feeling curves wide, 
not this gray without birds
this quiet without singing

---

©2023 Linda Chown
All rights reserved

---

---

The 2023 (Inter)National Poetry Month BeZine Blog Bash

Art: European Robin, pastels, ©2021 Tom Higgins

---