Category: From the Soul

by Ernie McCray

I can’t remember who the player was
in all the March Madness
the other day
but he
grabbed a rebound
with such power and grace
it etched a “Wow” in the expression on my face
and he had a look on his face
that I used to have when I played,

by Ernie McCray

I see
two
displaced groups of refugees
seeking asylum in
the Land of the Free.

One group hails from Ukraine.
The other from Haiti.
The Ukrainians are
running frantically
from the ravages of war,
bombings and such,
into our country’s open arms,

by Ernie McCray

Vladimir Putin
pursues his lifelong dream
of reigning over all
the land
and air
and sea
in his proximity,
singling out Ukrainians to take the brunt of his
inhuman atrocities:
bombing and storming them,
looting their wealth and shooting them,
rolling his tanks down their avenues and streets…

by Ernie McCray

Oh, how about those Wildcats,
the way they get after it,
winning both the
Pac-12 regular season
and the Pac-12 Tournament
basketball championships
looking, to me, better
than any Arizona team I’ve ever seen

by Ernie McCray

I’m wallowing in the good feeling I was left with after spending time in a park with Marley, my six-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter.

I keep thinking how just a very few years ago we wouldn’t have survived an hour or two together, alone.

Because of what you might say: communication problems. I could hardly understand what Marley was saying when she was a bit younger

by Ernie McCray

It’s said that this century is the Age of Knowledge,
but how can that be
with the banning of books
and hints in the air
that we don’t really
love to read?

I ask such a question
as one who needs a good read
as much as my lungs need oxygen to breathe
as much as Count Dracula needs
a victim’s neck to bleed.

by Ernie McCray

When I see various “banned books” lists
I can only sigh
a “My, my, my”
because

I see,
for one,
Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”
and I remember
the journey of Pecola, the mysterious protagonist
in this brilliantly crafted spin,
who suffers the deep stabbing pains of “less-than-ness”
due to the color of her skin.
Everyone should know that such as this
can exist

I see
Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

by Ernie McCray

Dorothy Smith,
a friend
and hero of mine
passed away the other day,
leaving me wishing,
in my sadness,
that she could have seen
“Still, We Rise,”
a poetry and jazz show
featuring Yolanda Franklin
a brilliant local thespian,
and I
reading our poems
and those of
Amanda Gorman
who mesmerized a nation

by Ernie McCray

Here we stand today.
Black folks in the USA.
Still dealing with the same old same old.
Everyday.
It’s like a form of employment,
a job with very little pay.

But the winds of change will still blow.

Even with such as
the “N” word episodes
on a popular podcast show,
the winds of change will still blow.

by Ernie McCray

There’s no single sound
in basketball
sweeter to this old hoopster’s
ear than the sound of “Swish,”
the ball
hitting nothing but net.
It’s a sound
that’s enabled
me to forget
things that have had me down,
like
“Swish”
and Sister Mary Benedict
swatting my knuckles
to Kingdom Come,

by Ernie McCray

I saw something the other day
about what would you say
to your twenty-year-old self
as advice.

I’ve thought about it
once or twice
and what I would say to my
twenty-year-old self is:

“You’re on the right track, Jack!”

by Ernie McCray

I was just reminiscing
in my mind
how on many
a day
I would curse
the blazing Tucson
summer sun
at noon
and then
kneel in awe
at its beauty
when it set,
and then marvel
at the rising
of a
bright Sonoran moon.