Most mornings, I look out my hallway window and watch the sky turn bright rust. I’ve always loved the early morning sky-glow: All the words yet to write and ideas yet to learn swell inside of me – a rising tide where creation crashes staid shores where apathy erodes into a new poem or character or song — with the sky blooming from black…to fire…to blue.
The morning sky’s transitions echo my soul-colors: black moods give way to anger’s fire which then give way to calm blue peace. All the shades and hues within my mood transitions lead to a need to draw ink from a pen or vibrations form a guitar string in order to communicate a new emotion I felt when hearing a two-year old say to her young mother: Ode you? And the young mother knowing to lift the child into her arms and embrace her with mother-love. Theirs is a secret language out of public reach. Still, I want my words or music to be like their bond: simple…deep…connected.
But, my life is a fight and there’s not much time these days: I just cannot turn a blind eye to the child left behind, who struggles to read or add, but for no other reason than the color of his or her skin. I’d rather my own skin be stripped away while I watch than let my own son fall into that gap. Each day I remember wrapping him in his baby blanket. He looked to me, then, like a little glowworm doll. Since then, I’ve called him, worm, and to me, he’ll always be that little baby wrapped in a blanket. His whole life awaits him: I know he, like me, will have a need to express that he may not always understand or manage well.
Still, his spirit and the young mother and daughter calm me into soothing blue; two down, a million children to go. I fight to bridge their gap and fire will rage until it’s built. For them, I lift my pen and stir the black forces so that they never have to…
