Category: Columns

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.

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.