Vox Populi
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Michael T. Young: Sitting in the Dark
On the day another black man is shot
I sit with my family watching sparrows
pick through soil warmed in sunlight.
That man should be here, learning
from these birds, as we are, how to
attend to the beauty before us.
But in my country’s subtractions, it would
make him a digit in a story of numbers.
By such calculations we lose more
than the math tells us: our names
carried away when these sparrows
take off in search of the sunlight.
Copyright 2021 Michael T. Young
Michael T. Young’s books include The Infinite Doctrine of Water published by Terrapin Books. He lives and works in New Jersey.
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Richard Levine sent in a comment by email: “What a profoundly topical poem “Sitting in the Dark” is … from the smallness of sparrows to the immense and ever expanding roster of America’s racial sins, … another notch in our collective ballistic American consciousness.”
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Here is the exquisite interrelationship of the smallest thing to the largest. You have enhanced the cosmic stream of consciousness, as usual, dear friend.
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Thanks, Djelloul!
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Thank you, Djelloul. These are always the kinds of poems I wish didn’t need to be written. But they must. The injustice demands it.
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Indeed. I am slowly heartbroken.
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Oh, Rose Mary… my heart goes out to you.
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I pray for your and our country’s heart, Rose Mary.
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