Shoulder-to-Shoulder
Shall we learn the lessons of chlorophyll? How it holds the hands of fire and water, combines their incompatible tempers for a weight of photosynthesis heavy enough to turn the Earth? Will we engage the sensibility of those who can compose a tune? Set alongside each other notes of different strength and tone that for the sake of the stave will work together and not apart? Adversarial breaths that ventilate around a task in common demonstrate they dissipate their rage better side-by-side than face-to-face.
The B Side
Brutality and bias both begin with the letter b, like banner, bigot, baton, bled, bleed, bleeding red on the pavement again, bent by beliefs of the unbending. Hear the blue blues butterfly-heartache of those names stained without cause, bone-weary with building bridges brought to nothing over rivers every bit as bright as any other body. Allow their breeze to fill your sails, to carry us together to the other side; a place we cannot reach a- part.
Adaptation of a poem that first appeared in the ‘Black Lives Matter’ anthology published 2020 by Civic Leicester.
©2021 Roger Hare
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The BeZine 