Mosaic

for the Western North Carolina AIDS Project
by Glenis Redmond

I remember where I was when the world broke a little more.
Reagan was in command and I was a sophomore passing
Through Bonner Hall my dormitory lobby at Erskine College.
I remember becoming still as the T.V. broadcasted a thing

Called AIDS for the first time. I remember the news flashing
More fear than fact, I remember how I felt oddly cold,
As the temperature in the room seem to fall like a wounded
Sparrow and the sun seemed siphoned from the sky. Like Lot’s

Wife maybe I should not look back but the head turns involuntarily
To see how the earth narrowed and fractured in the same way
It did on 4th day of April in 1968, when I heard King was shot.
The same coldness took the air and resided in my bones.

This is the first time I heard the world break in an irreparable
Way, the first time I witnessed fault lines stretching across
The earth like tainted tributaries. In this divide I have found
The turned head does not render us to pillars of salt, but the closed

Heart that oxidizes our compassion. When the heart opens it teaches
The hand how to feed grief with the work of tending to the dead;
Stitching their memories into the fabric of our living. When the heart
Opens it speaks to the feet and guides their path to make a way

For the millions still living with class five hurricanes beneath their skin.
As my body ages, with its own version of breaking, it says this is the way
Of the world; making us and unmaking us daily; leaving us amongst
The rubble to piece our hearts to the work at hand feverish with mending.
 

©2008 - Glenis Redmond

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