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Jose Padua: To the Ruling Class and All the Fearful Acolytes of Its Pale Supremacy
There was the waitress who at the end
of my dinner with my wife, my young
daughter, my son, asked if I needed a
separate check. The gift shop owner
who asked my wife if she needed help
and then asked me, not thinking we were
there together even though we walked in
at the same time. The heavy numbers of
citizen heroes, patriots, professionals,
pillars of the community and such
who considered me a stranger, harasser,
servant of dictators, interloper, purveyor
of lies and dangerous ideologies
rather than husband, father, brother,
friend, celebrator, griever, loser,
earner, fellow walker of beautiful
streets in small, discreet towns; listener
to the daily buzz and warm hum of
big cities; viewer of sunsets, rivers,
and mountains; and lover of—and
sometimes to—the deep blue hush
of evening before all motion comes
to rest. To them I present just
this—my presence here, an aching
middle aged step, an appetite not
so much for knowledge but for
any manners of delight knowledge
may lead to. And whatever attempts
at grace I may make, I make not
for profit or glory, not that I am
averse to the possibilities of such,
nor to god or country or any entity
whose existence I am unsure of,
but for the simple purpose of beholding
the wideness of its reach, of feeling
the sweetly subtle strength of a great
and rarely spoken language.
Copyright 2019 Jose Padua
Photograph by Jose Padua
Wow! One to read and reread
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Yes, I love this poem because it starts out about the difficulty of experiencing racism, but by the last lines
the poet is talking about the triumph of the human spirit.
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Bravo!
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thanks, David!
Jose
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