BY MAGGIE BELISLE
Sunday in September, the 26th after the full moon.
First chance I’d had to sit alone and scribble some…
I wander through the crowds. The random remarks drift past.
Older women complaining to husbands
“I shoulda just stayed the Hell Home…”
“now WAITa minute.” the men counter “ I ASKED you if ….”
I walk on..voices fading…
the smells of body sweat, hot dogs,
and powdered sugar on hot grease, oil soaked dough from
“the ever popular Funnel Cakes”
see the proudly strutting males and females
so desperately presenting so much of their bodies..
“Please notice me” they shout silently
Here, among the masses there are magnificent ancient faces
a thousand years in replication farmers,
shepherds, warriors and ladies
They have the strength of endurance, determination…
this wonderful heritage of pride
etched in their faces
their hearts
their eyes.
Something responds.
Something remembered
By firesides and starfilled nights
stone hearths and dirt floors
and blood bonds
of blood feuds…
here together again
after the separation of so many centuries.
We clamor to praise one another
ourselves, our heritage.
We seek to affirm in one another that we are kin
by centuries of survival
the faces of strangers seem familiar.
The sights and sounds all spilling over a multitude
of collective memory…
And when the music plays a thousand hands keep time
a thousand heels stamp out the
pounding of the familiar rhythms.
We know these all by rote by blood by heart
even if we’ve never heard the tune before…
And between the frolic of jigs and reels
there is the squeezbox and the pipes, the whistles
all recalling our tears
a thousand years old
a thousand times shed
a thousand times remembered.
Something survives. Something Endures.
It is Ourselves
Still a People
for heartbreaks of losses and countless struggles borne
Still a nation of wanderers
laughing and singing
while dancing down the days
of too much time
apart
Review or comment on Sunday in September –
Reviews:
There is a vivid imagination behind these lines, however the thoughts are jumbled up. They are yearning for a natural development into a wonderful picturesque description of that day in September.
Walid Sharif 9/2/06
Other poem by Maggie Belisle:
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