Bloodlines (revised last stanza)<\/p>\n
It took a move east to resurrect
\nmy Southern roots. To remind me
\nof the Kentucky in my bloodline
\nthe racists I know well. How they
\nflourish in the fertile hatred of today.
\nAlways there are reasons. So they tell me.<\/p>\n
It took the familiarity of mountains
\nI had never seen their hazy blue ridges
\nto heal my seared wounds. Allow me grief.
\nWorn tops softened by water, these
\nare the mountains my grandmother
\nwho would not watch a black newscaster
\ncrossed to Oklahoma. They are my bones.<\/p>\n
And now the children of her children\u2019s
\nchildren\u2019s children mingle black brown white
\nlike the soft silt beneath the resurrection fern.
\nThey paint the landscape with their laughter
\nin the bright languages of love. Far away from then.<\/p>\n
Here among the spruce and fir, hawthorns
\nberry after dogwood. Tulip poplars reach out
\nabove the ridgelines of the old houses beneath.
\nA man in Roanoke writes the stories of nooses
\nand the men & women who hung from them.
\nTime is a river that erodes the shores of memory.<\/p>\n
This is not the state where my young lover
\nfled a car that ran him over, driver laughing.
\nNor is this the state where a friend was warned
\nDon\u2019t be caught here after the dark you resemble.
\nThat South too is a thread in my mother\u2019s cord.<\/p>\n
I have fed from the bloody hands of \u2018good people.\u2019
\nI have noted the excuses for their hatreds, all
\nin the name of some white god. Perhaps the god
\nof my grandmother, but not her children\u2019s
\nchildren\u2019s children. It took a move east
\nfor me to remember this.<\/p>\n
Something more than blood lives within these hills
\nSomething resurrected not from the bones of hate
\nbut from the ashes of forgiveness, that warmed
\nthe coloured mud we grew from. Like the grief I hold
\nwithin me, grief I cannot give a name to.
\nLike the nameless Southern colours neither black
\nnor white. Like the soft blue mountains
\nthat have seen it all before. Like memory
\nreturning home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bloodlines (revised last stanza) It took a move east to resurrect my Southern roots. To remind me of the Kentucky in my bloodline the racists I know well. How they flourish in the fertile hatred of today. Always there are reasons. So they tell me….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50566"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59467,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50566\/revisions\/59467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}