Hi peeps.
Y’all have no idea how sweet it is when I tell someone that I have done something, or thought about something and have him or her say “I know, I read your rant.”
I’ve written here before about the apparent weight and value of my words when I was growing up. It’s funny. A lot of what I said was discounted, either out of lack of concern, or simply to discredit my veracity in order to cover their own @$$e$, but then if I told any one of my adult-folks that they should be extra careful on the river or road or in the woods that day, they would take great precautions because of their belief in my ‘insight’.*
Maybe that’s why I write and talk and draw/paint about how I feel so much. Because I want to be heard, and because I’ve never really been sure that I actually have anything to say. I was shut up and discounted for so long that now I want to just pour out my heart, whatever the consequences to me, and it really is the sweetest thing when someone comments on what I’ve written here, or something I’ve said to them. Even if they disagree, I know they’ve listened, and so many times people say that I have touched them or made them think, and that means all the world to me. It makes me seriously consider the value of my words, and try to make them count.

Thank you for reading, thank you for your comments (yes, Mike, even you…), thank you for believing that I have something worth saying.

Here’s another poem (don’t worry, I’m running out fast. : ) This is dedicated to Nina Simone** who is my favorite blues singer. She was born and raised here, about 1/16 of a mile from my house, or less, if you cut through the woods. When the local Community Foundation built a new park in Tryon, they asked me to come and read this poem at the dedication ceremony. Considering what this poem is really saying, that was pretty brave and bold of them.
I think this is the best poem I have ever written.

Nina

You sing to me
when the hurt is so deep
that nothing else can touch it.
Your voice is rough and strong,
like my fathers hand resting on my back,
weighted heavy with long years
of understanding ache.

You know the burdens
of love and salvation,
the sound of grief
at the bottom of a glass,
and you talk to me, soul sister,
any time I need to hear.

Sundays,
I walk past the place
where you slept and dreamed
of other lives, of freedom.
I imagine that you came this way,
swinging your arms,
singing softly to the graveyard.

Did you sit here
on your steps and cry so loud
that all the Mill Village
dogs would howl,
but not another human could hear you?
I hear it, and I howl too.

Now, all the wealthy white men –
actors, poets and politicians –
have their names plastered
on every other building.
Not one of them knows me,
or you, or cares.
Civic pride has a limit, I suppose.

I know you won’t come home –
I can’t blame you.
I came here to get away from home.
But your voice still rings down Markham,
across Scriven creek valley,
and gives me courage to face another day here.

My civic pride says:
“She got out.
Will I ever?”
It also says:
”Of all the things I’ve found here,
I am most proud of you and I.”


* * *
Big love,
-Sam


*Hm. Maybe I should’ve tried telling someone that I’d had a psychic vision that my stepfather was gonna’ beat my ass and lock me in a shed with nothing to eat or drink.
‘Sorry. I guess some things you STAY a little mad about, always.

**btw, Nin(k)a, she’s who was playing as I was placing the incense around yours and Jerels wedding pavilion. :)