Category: From the Soul

Sometimes I get dancing feet.
I’ll hear a song
and can’t help but want to move
to its rhythm,
to its beat.

When my hand wasn’t being shook or my body hugged by old friends I stood with my mind tripping as I looked down at the multitude of people who had gathered to march in the name of Trayvon Martin who had been slain by George Zimmerman, a man who remains free from imprisonment under Florida’s “Standing Your Ground” law, aka the right to kill.

In between speakers, and as we walked, my mind kept on tripping and I let my imagination flow and from that there rose a scenario featuring a powerfully built African American man named Cleavon Manson and a six foot plus skinny white teenage boy who responds to Gabe. Last name, Zabielski.

I was sitting at a table at the Barrio Station, in San Diego’s Barrio Logan, next to a Chicana friend of mine, having a good time sipping the tastiest of whiskey sours while she nursed a smooth white wine.

In the background the music that was being sung and played was sounding ever so sublime. Among the selection was De Colores, a song of exquisitely mellow rhythm and rhyme, a song of love and that suited everybody just fine as we represented all the colors of the rainbow and had shown up in a spirit of love for a beautiful and worthy cause – to celebrate an organization that has served the needs of the children in this Barrio with an abundance of love for over 40 years without pause.

In such a festive atmosphere with delightful uplifting corridas filling the air I couldn’t help but drift into a Barrio State of Mind.

Lately, it seems, when I get news from my beloved Sonoran Desert it’s filled with vibrations that chill my soul, tales of senate and assembly bills that threaten the well being of some of its citizens, tales of students being denied studies that motivate them to reach for great things in their lives, tales of books being banned that inspire critical thinking.

But the other day I received a bit of refreshing E-News from the College of Education at my alma mater, the University of Arizona, that made me feel vibes that made me want to sing “U of A! U of A!”

It was about UA athletes sharing fun and exercise with “little wildcats” during the university’s second annual Track and Field Day, teaching them how to become and stay healthy.

These first through fourth graders got to play outdoors in fresh air on a wonderful day, running and jumping in individual events and in relays, under the mentoring of superbly fit and well trained college athletes like some of them might become some day. My kind of story. A story of love and giving. I applaud the track team for gifting these kids with such a wonderful life experience.

I wrote in the guest book of her obituary:

Pearlie Mae. What can I say.
On my family tree.
A cousin but like a big sister to me.
Part of my history.
Here when I arrived.
Could always count on her love.
In my heart she will always reside.

She was a prominent member on our branch of the Windham/Windom family tree. Our grandmother’s Lillie (hers) and Alma (mine) were sisters. It’s hard believing that she’s now resting in peace with those two extraordinary women.

Her obituary states how selfless and loyal she was to family and friends and confidantes and I sure got a sense of that early on in life.

There’s a character
from old Minstrel Shows
who went by the name of Jim Crow,
white man in
black face
depicting what he considered to be,
a Negro,
all singy and dancey and grinny,
don’t you know,
but over time
in my mind
I configured the soul
of the rogue playing Jim Crow
as the mastermind
of all the crimes
against my gentes
I’ve seen in a lifetime,
a symbol of all our woes,
morphing into
“The Man”
I’ve come to know:
….

Oh, Governor Brewer, I look at a photo of you flashing such a sunny smile and I can’t help but think of a song Maya Angelou sings: “When it looked like the sun wouldn’t shine anymore, God Put a rainbow in the clouds.”

With that smile of yours you could surely put a rainbow in a people’s clouds but you’ve chosen instead, to literally, through a hateful bill called SB1070, turn your hounds on them. Your law gives “the law” the right to stop a range of brown folks, Mexican Americans, Chicanos, Mexicanos – on “reasonable suspicion.”

Whoa! “Reasonable suspicion” is a chilling term for some of us. I’m one of the most law abiding people I know and I have been “reasonably suspicious” on a number of occasions. Like I was suspected of being a thief one time based on a “burglar tool” (a screwdriver) being in my car. A house had been robbed in the “vicinity,” an area, in these kinds of situations, equal in size to the continental United States.

There’s this book ban
in Arizona
which is supposedly
in the USA
where book banning
isn’t supposed to take place
but they went on and did it anyway.
And it happened “quicker than
you can say,
Jack Robinson,”
an idiom from a long ago day.

(Note from Ernie: This was written in memory of Diana Gail Shipley, a dear friend and educator who was an inspiration to many people throughout San Diego. She lost a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer on January 5, 2012. I submit it here so that readers could just get an inkling of what a remarkable human being she was.)

When Diana arrived in heaven,
I can imagine the Almighty looking at her going:
“Diana.
Hm, hm, hm.
My Sister, my Sister, my Sister.
I know how you battled what ailed you
so I forgive you for arriving CP time
but I just want to tell you
that I’m so glad to greet you
because you were just what I had in mind
when I came up with this whole idea of Humankind.”
I mean wasn’t someone like Diana what a Creator must have wished for among His creations, someone:

Oh, Mighty Sonoran,
I fight back tears
for what they’ve
done to God’s Brown Children,
Sonorans for hundreds of years,
for how they’ve
banned their studies,
lied about their heroes,
stolen books filled with their histories
like purse snatchers
abusing passers-by
on dangerous urban streets
while they cried in their classroom seats.

Hey, there’s people
out there stressin’
going”What’s up with all this ‘Occupy?'”
Well, I tell you one thing
and this ain’t no lie.
Occupy
as a concept,
ain’t something
that just dropped from the sky.
Unh. Unh.
Not even a close try….

Sitting reflecting
on my lifetime.
And, man, I’ve ridden
the currents
of many kinds
of times:
times when I’ve danced in the street
like when Mandela was set free
as though he was ever really imprisoned,
if you hear me;
times when I didn’t want to open my eyes,
knowing the ugliness that was in front of me;
times when life was just a flatout mystery,
like George W. Bush
twice winning a presidency
in the land of the freakin’ free,
do you hear me?;
times when they played my song,
“Ernie, Ernie, he’s our man
if he can’t do it nobody can!”