Tear It Down

Here I am, and there you be. So many times I’ve walked past you, Your Highness, but you never noticed me. From your place in the sky.

Day after day. Year after year. Life after life. I’m struggling here. To understand.

Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s true. That you’ll never love me the way I love you. Do you even know what love is?

I don’t belong here, at least that’s what you say. With Robert E. Lee leading the way. But ‘We the People’ do not agree.

Gathered about him, all American hues. Evenings of protests, and singing the blues. For the scores of lives lost on the general’s watch.

Under cover of night, with cans of spray in hand, Skateboard Brothers redesigned him to suit this great land. That’s why I’m sitting here.

So here I am, and there you be. 10:21, Monday morning, and you were right when you said, as you stomp out the living and elevate the dead, that ‘we are not the same’.

Brothers and Sisters, look closer. Come on, don’t you see? The reckoning’s for you as much as for me. For the train is coming and it’s rolling in fast. Carrying sweet freedom, once we bury the past.

Tear it down…

(This poem was inspired by the capture of the Robert E. Lee monument in Richmond, Virginia on June 14th, 2020. On my way out of town I stopped by the monument with my camera in hopes of snapping an image that would translate the spirit of the movement, having been so affected by the show of strength and unity at the protest the night before. I was moved to the point of tears to find this young man resting peacefully on the monument in the morning aftermath.)