Final
R A I D E R L E G E N D
Friday, April 23, 2021
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
The Hill We Climb - Amanda Gorman
When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.
But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain.
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.
The new dawn balloons as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
George Floyd Day of Resurrection
Derek Chauvin guilty of murder, manslaughter in death of George Floyd | CBC News
What the World Didn't See in Me - I Am George Floyd
From the Heavens of the Holy I've watched and waited to see if this killer cop would answer for my death. And here its been almost a year, as an entire nation waits in wonder with bated breath.
It all happened that first Monday of May, 2020. For on that day, I rose up from underneath a policeman's knee and gained my wings. While ascending I looked down upon a painfully familiar scene; police brutalizing a black body while onlookers unsuccessfully pleaded for mercy. I'd been seeing the same scene since childhood, cops subduing a lone black figure by any means they feel necessary. Only, on this fateful day it's my black neck caught between a racist cop and a hard place.
As I lay dying, I heard mama's soothing voice call to me. She was calling me home in a way only a mama could, with offerings of love and comfort. I couldn't see mama, but her presence was all around me. Suddenly, almost as if I had slipped straight into a dream, I was floating upward, free of all fears, wants and needs. I had no pain, no struggles and oddly enough, no need to breathe. I was rising above it all, becoming a witness to my own execution. And somehow, I felt only sorrow and pity for my executioner. The biblical words of Jesus 'father forgive them, for they know not what they do' were never more clear.
As I continued to rise heavenward, I caught myself praying for the badged boy in blue still kneeling on his dead victim's neck below. Like an uncompromising confederate statue, unapologetic of its rebellious history, he displays misguided honor and anger.
With a gleam of the proud hunter twinkling in his eyes, he knelt over his captive prey like many badged predators have throughout the years. If this were the good ol' boy confederacy of Jeff Davis, a rope and oak tree would be sought for hanging and burning of such strange fruit.
Just as I am all too familiar with this horrific scene playing out down below, so to is the badged boy in blue. However, he appears euphorically intent on enacting a scene of unjustifiable homicide, triggered by a hellish hatred. He demonstrates a total lack of respect for humanity under civil law, because in his warped ego he is the 'goddam' law (judge, jury and executioner). His victims are doomed to 'ride the lightning' in order to fulfill his own distorted sense of compliance through domination.
And still I rise up. Looking down prayerful for those innocent bystanders, damned to suffer visions of this horrific day for the rest of their earthbound lives. On the sidewalk, an innocent nine-year old third grader who said afterward she felt "sad and kind of mad" watching the badged boy in blue kneeling unmercifully on the neck of a black body for 9.5 minutes. I pray my beautiful six-year old daughter, Gianna, feels my rise and heals from the loss of her earthly innocence. Me and Grandma are always with you baby girl!
Yes, down there is where my black body lies, and still I rise. While this badged boy in blue poses for pictures and video clips atop my graying carcass, displaying his (s)kill. I now see it all and pray for humanity past, present and future. How long will this race of humans, who coin themselves civilized, feel entitled to wipe out anything or anybody they see as a threat to their ideas and/or way of life?
Yes Lord, down there is where my black body lies, and still I rise. Because a soul, minus hate and full of love for all, never dies. To discover one's soul and cherish it while alive is life's prize. So rise up humanity, become a world you hope to see reflected in your child's eyes. Where not by the color of one's skin but by the content of one's character we judge truths, and lies.
Still I Rise
BY MAYA ANGELOU
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise" from And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Baseball is BACK!
Yes sports fans, MLB is back in the swing of things, and my San Francisco Giants entertaining to watch once again. As I type this post, they're leading 7-6 in the bottom of the eighth inning. I know, I shouldn't tempt the baseball Gods so openly, but the game has been very entertaining and the Giants appear to have a winning wind blowing behind their bats.
Maybe I'm just another fan missing baseball so much he's seeing magic where there really isn't any. Maybe I'm kidding myself about the Giants competitive chances this season. Whatever the case may be, baseball is back and the promise of fielding a winning team in San Francisco is alive and well; at least in the hearts of fans like myself.
These Giants might not be on par with the 2010/2012/2014 championship teams just yet, but look out MLB, there's an orange and black underdog sniffing at the heels of projected NL contenders. And they're getting cockier with every game.
Bottom of the 9th, two outs with Giants closer Jake McGee on the mound hurling 97mph.
Let's Go G-I-A-N-T-S!
Let's Go G-I-A-N-T-S!
Let's Go G-I-A-N-T-S!
Thursday, April 08, 2021
Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful)
an italian protest folk song used by partisans againt mussolini and nazis.
also featured in the netflix series “Money Heist”
Wednesday, April 07, 2021
From A Street I Was Summoned!
Yesterday, while receiving my second dose of coronavirus vaccine, I was mesmerized by my injection nurse. It wasn't just the slight vocal twang from her upstate New York roots I recognized, nor her boogie-down Bronx style she inherited from three years interning at Bronx North Central Hospital. It was her body art that first "summoned" me.
The upper arm tattoo of a masked nurse was three-quarters hidden by her shirt sleeve. I asked for a look-see and she proudly obliged. As you can see below, the tattoo is engaging to say the least. She explained the artwork was done in the Bronx, NY, and the nurse's face is actually made up of two female nurse faces, one on each side.
Conversing so effortlessly as we were, I hadn't noticed the needle prick nor withdraw. It was the most unnoticeable injection I've ever had the displeasure of receiving.
Here was a young nurse who loved nursing patients with a passion. When initially directed to her nursing station, I knew at first glance I was in the presence of a "summoned" soul, born to be at this place, at this hour, serving in this pandemic.
You could tell from her relaxed confidence that her calling to be a nurse came as a revelation, probably while still a believer in Santa Claus. I picture her easily donning toy stethoscope and head lamp from Hasbro Milton Bradley Co.'s childhood board game, "Operation."
Of course she would have assisted her older brother in surgery, methodically handing him surgical utensils in their mock operating room. Although she likely mastered the board game with graceful skill as a 5yr old surgeon specialist, something about assisting doctors, attending to patients and performing post-op procedures as a nurse appealed to her giving nature. Something had "summoned" her.
To hear it told through the words of Chilean poet and Nobel Prize in Literature award winner, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973):
"I don't know how or when,
but from a street
I was summoned."
but from a street
I was summoned."
Meaning, we all have God-given talents in us; some hidden, some obvious from an early age. When we are beckoned to apply/share our talent(s), it's as if in that instant the "heavens unfasten and open." We come face to face with our soul's purpose and destiny. We are free from choosing because it has chosen us. We are "summoned" to serve humanity.
I felt blessed to witness and receive her gift. Where would the world be without Nurses!
And it was at that age... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.
Pablo Neruda