Category: From the Soul

by Ernie McCray

Dear Fannie Lou.

You don’t know me.
But I know you.
You’ve been a hero of mine
for a mighty-long time.

I couldn’t help but think of you the other day, after a clown in the Senate tried to make it sound like voting was easy in the USA, that Blacks voted as much as “Americans.”

He laid that nonsense down, knowing full well, being from Kentucky, that voting in America for Black folks and other dark folks has been hell ever since the 15th Amendment gave us the right to vote.

by Ernie McCray

Living in harmony is but a dream.
A beautiful
life-affirming dream
that we’ve denied ourselves
because of the innerworkings
of how we treat each other
in the scheme of things.

Like here’s what I mean.

by Ernie McCray

I look back at January of last year and I can’t help but think: “Damn, I hope I don’t experience anything like that ever again.”

Referring, of course to the scene, in the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021: a vision of huffing and puffing and blowing your house down mentality dialed up a billion degrees, treason in the form of pushing and shoving and smashing and pummeling, a tearing of the fabric of our democracy.

Led by the president of the country where this melee takes place.

In our face.

And this man is still dancing in the street, talking smack about this and smack about that, doing as he pleases, held to no rules, in fact.

By Ernie McCray

Joan Didion.

Betty White.

Both touched my life.

After hearing that Joan had died, I suddenly remembered how she helped me when my wife passed on, leaving me trapped in heart-rending sorrow and grief beyond belief, feeling as though I would die, too, with all the pain I was going through.

But as days and weeks and months passed the intensity of my suffering eased a tad – and I read Joan’s “The Year of Magical Thinking,” her account of losing her husband and daughter within a couple of years of each other.

by Ernie McCray

2021.
Whew! What a year.
Makes you entertain hopes for what the New Year might bring.

And there could be a variety of hopes.
Know what I mean?

And I have hopes for the New Year.

Based on this past year, a year I suspected would be a bit crazy, considering all the sadness and madness we had to tolerate during the previous four years or so, I would hope we never experience anything so bizarre and frightening ever again.

by Ernie McCray

So tired
of people on my TV,
especially during the holidays,
going on and on
about why they
“ain’t getting no damn vaccine
for no damn Covid-19!

by Ernie McCray

Just for fun, on a kickback lazy kind of day, I responded to the 15 questions Stephen Colbert, of the Late Show, likes to ask his guests.

Like what’s the best sandwich? And the answer to that, of course, is a BLT.

Exercise worth it? Yes-siree.

What number is Stephen thinking of? I have no guess because numbers are from zero to infinity.

Apples or oranges? I like both but I’m partial to fruit that sounds crunchy when I take a bite – generally.

by Ernie McCray

Oh, the weather.
Winds and snows
and tornadoes
wreaking unspeakable harm,
while, at the same time,
we pray for the rains to fall
to protect us from
firestorms
that transform
our woodlands
into acres of
charred terrain,
its flames
leaving towns
as darkened
burnt-out memories.

by Ernie McCray

Baby
came into our lives
near the turn of the century
about eighteen years ago,
out of nowhere,
it seems,
a kitten
tramping through
our yard
and hanging out
on our front porch,
perhaps sensing
that she was at the right place

by Ernie McCray

As I listened to
my friend and hero,
Berenice Badillo,
talk about her art
in Chicano Park
a few days ago,
her mural,
“No Human Being is Illegal,”
that was born in her soul,
I hadn’t expected to
hear about
the plight of women
in the Chicano movement

by Ernie McCray

“Liberty and Justice for All.”
That just might be America’s biggest lie
of all.
I mean
a young man,
a White teen,
with a rifle
that looks like
an AR-15,
appears on a scene
where people,
in spite
of some folks
acting crazy and obscene,
were peacefully
chanting and singing,

by Ernie McCray

Oh, I love
what the county
of San Diego
did on
a beautiful Southern California
day,
matching such beauty
by tending to the needs of children
who live south
of the border
down Mexico way,
providing them
with their first shot
of a vaccine