Allegretto
vivace
Bert Haverkate-Ens
I heard music in the young checkout woman’s voice.
Where did that come from?
Who did she take lessons from
when she was a child?
Perhaps she practiced thirty minutes
every afternoon after school.
Or is she simply a natural talent?
Of course, she is still young.
Now I can manage some cautious cheerfulness
when I’m walking along in the sunshine
and my feet don’t hurt.
But her voice still lilts,
standing hour after hour,
that incessant beep, beeping
in her ears,
in front of an often unappreciative audience.
It would be inappropriate of me to give her
a standing ovation.
I can only wish, someday,
that she gets the chance to sing
the songs she loves.
Not that I don’t quite selfishly
hope that her talent goes undiscovered
as she checks my few groceries
and brightens my day.
But maybe it could be as they say
that an old dog could learn
to at least carry a tune
from this mistress of mirth.
After all, I am likely to face
my own versions of hard times,
eventually, somewhere down this road,
and it might be better to go singing,
even when I’ll have to wonder why.
I listen to the music in this young
checkout woman’s voice,
and instead of grumbling how long
I had to wait,
or how much my feet ache,
I practice lifting the corners of my mouth
in gratitude for her lively melody.
walktokaw.blogspot.com
Something a
little funny about race
Bert Haverkate-Ens
Three black girls
sat in a corner
of Central Field.
An old white male
watched them
from across the way.
Presumptions are made
all the time
based on the color of skin,
of age, of gender.
It’s simpler that way.
Several years ago
these girls would have learned
how to add their ages together
and would still find that their total is
less than my single sum.
But are we equal to?
My people,
I presume those generations long gone
to be mine,
they came to this part of the world
some years well after
their people - more presumptions made -
were freed in this country’s
Civil War,
skirmishes for their freedom
breaking out from time to time
to this very day.
So many simplifications
in telling the tales.
Their people.
My people.
People of my skin color
and my gender,
were mindlessly and
maliciously
raping and lynching
those people of darker hues -
so long ago by these girls lives,
yet so very near the time of my own birth
in this land of the not yet fully free.
All this matters,
the math and the history,
but today I care about something else.
These school girls must have seen me coming
and I hope their merry laughter
is of a simple sort,
and I smile at what I presume
young girls might find that is funny
in a ruddy face and aging gait.
If only we each get our turn.
And then they rose,
their kinky black hair,
their skinny-jeaned legs
like scissors in harmony,
and the three girls scampered up the hill
and vanished behind the school house doors.
I presumed they were my people,
from the way they giggled.
Why wouldn’t I?
It’s better that way.
walktokaw.blogspot.com
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