Friday, June 5, 2020

Meditation 67



5 June 2020

The point is not to capture an instant, arrest it, put it in cuffs and haul it to jail; nor is it to push it down to the sidewalk, watching it bleed from the head. Memory ought not be incarceration, but opening. The pronoun can’t afford its abstraction; that was an old man pushed to the ground by a policeman. National Guard troops stand shoulder to shoulder in Lafayette Park, behind fences, shining beams of light at protesters on the other side, not to see them, rather not to be seen by them. There were slave auctions in that park. The incarcerated body remains not in the bronze of a statue, but behind the thin skin of a police line. You can fence out skin, but not the breath.



4 comments:

Karen S. said...

Oh, Susan!! So beautifully, painfully, perfectly done. I'd suggest ending on "You can fence out skin, but not the breath."
I'd like to pick out some favorite sentences, but all the rest of them would qualify.
<3

susan said...

Good idea, Karen, though the "breathe, baby, breathe" alludes to "burn, baby, burn" of the Watts riots. Still, I think your suggestion is probably for the best.

Janet said...

I got the allusion, but I agree with Karen that you don't need it. I'd start a poem with "Breathe, baby, breathe," though. And I do love, "Memory ought not be incarceration, but opening."

susan said...

Thanks, taking sage advice!