By Michael H. Brownstein
When the poet of Marston, Hayti, Lilbourn was sent away,
the teacher sentenced him to alone time without
pencils, pens, paper, books or a window for daydreaming.
He pretended to tattoo his poetry onto his skin –
each blemish a key word, each scar an image,
each time away a memory carved into
the next day and the day after that. Words are easy
and over time he learned all of them by heart.
His poetry was the poetry of the living.
Then the county opened its schools to everyone,
equal treatment, equal encouragement, equal everything:
“Yesterday fire burst free from the breasts of two robins,
A rush of red sparkled across the feathers of a lone cardinal,
And a beetle took its first tentative steps across concrete.
“Today a rainbow of sun reached
Above the coyote howls
And melted into a mix of mist…,” he wrote.
In the sunlight of equality in education, the poet remembered everything,
and wrote about the ways of the good men when they encounter evil
and how even in evil….
He adopted ten children over time,
married another survivor of segregation and had two sons
and the air of equality made him stronger.
| Copyright © 2021 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
Do tell who this brilliant survivor may be! Don't keep us in suspenders! "Educators" in Florida were pretty bad until the space program came along, and Disney and all-can't have a bad image now, can we? Bad for business! I'd say by 1975 we had reasonably integrated schools. In 1969 I made a point of becoming friends with the first black kid in our Jr. High. I think it was more because I wanted to be a revolutionary than anything, but it was rewarding; I learned a lot. Thank you for your great stories and poetry, but I must applaud your humanity as well. You have dedicated your life to educating kids for whom the only sun in the sky is knowledge. Bravo, sir. Bravo.
ReplyDeleteMichael, in Roger’s comment I think I see another testimonial to yourself to clip into your resumé. Roger is as perceptive and generous a person as l know in seeing and witnessing good.
ReplyDeleteI found myself also trying to find the author of the quotes lines, but failing. Do tell.
ReplyDeleteThe poem is a composite of my time spent in the Bootheel of Missouri the year the schools were forced to integrate. Sorry, but the lines are mine. The poet is really a number of teens who were going to go to school with white children for the first time, they were concerned but not really worried, and we did a few actions with the black and white teenagers to get them to be comfortable with each other including a dance in the heart of North Lilbourn, the home of many of the black students. The dance was held in a community center, if you could call it that, the only place that had electricity (through a generator) and a record player in the area, and, I must say, it started off very badly, but there was a surprise turn and soon everyone was dancing with everyone--regardless of race. When schools reopened a few weeks later, this particular school district had not one issue with integration. Can't vouch for the adults, but the teachers and students had absolutely no problem at all. I wrote about it. Maybe I can find the original article and I can share it with all of you.
ReplyDeleteSo not just a single survivor but many-"the African-American Poet" finally free to create as an archtype rather than an individual. Even better! The second year we had several dozen black kids, and one group of black guys started walking around with their belts undone and their pants halfway unzipped, just being the usual class punks but with the added tension of race. We had our own group and one kid said we should fight them. I didn't want a fight but they were being rude to some girls, so as young Southern gentlemen (NOT-we were punks too) you know we HAD to do something. One brilliant guy, Jimmy Johnson, had it: we all started doing the same thing. In a day or two they stopped; when the white boys did it it wasn't cool any more. Don't think we ever had a racial school fight in Brevard County where the space program is, but when we sent teams down to where we live now, St Lucie, there were a lot. Westwood High had riots in the 70's, and at football games the away teams' PARENTS, mostly white, even got into it with the locals, mostly black. St Lucie has improved, but it is still the 4th poorest county out of 64 in Florida, and the education system shows it.
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