America in Mourning - by TPO

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1933-2020

America is in Mourning !

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WHEN GREAT TREES FALL *
By Maya Angelou
=================
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
_____________________________
* Source: Homebound Publications

 

Excerpted from a Facebook Post ~ by Hénock Gugsa

 

Excerpted from a Facebook Post 

~ by Hénock Gugsa ~

A Facebook exchange is taking place between two women about a  neighborhood convenience store (C-Town) and the checkout clerk who might already be sick from COVID.  This is from a post by a FB friend of mine who lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

I found the conversation somehow hilarious.  But someone objected, thinking that I was laughing "because [I] found the women ignorant."

On the contrary, I don't think these women are ignorant at all.  In fact, what I see is pure, unadulterated and visceral responses and reactions to everyday life.  

Actually I find  the humor arising not from their " ignorance" but in other things that come into play such as politics.  

These women are actually slamming Trump for his racist "shit-hole countries" remark that he made some time back.  There is also an unspoken criticism of his administration's total failure in this pandemic to help out the most affected communities.  

I was laughing at the extreme irony of it all !  This is a serious, "hurting-funny" situation where we are all weeping at the madness and craziness of America now!