IN the Shenandoah Valley, one rider gray and one rider blue, and the sun on the riders wondering.

Piled in the Shenandoah, riders blue and riders gray, piled with shovels, one and another, dust in the Shenandoah taking them quicker than mothers take children done with play.

The blue nobody remembers, the gray nobody remembers, it's all old and old nowadays in the Shenandoah..    .    .
And all is young, a butter of dandelions slung on the turf, climbing blue flowers of the wishing woodlands wondering: a midnight purple violet claims the sun among old heads, among old dreams of repeating heads of a rider blue and a rider gray in the Shenandoah.

I’ve tried to leave her before
but watching from the plane I cry.
the patchwork valley below
digs into my heart.  
nestled between blue mountains
cradle me here, I am safe.

~
Silver water
flowing out from under
moon-less-ness

Beautiful daughter of the stars
dancing in eclipse, remembering
the season of the sun

And how her
calculating love survived
its long hibernation
~

It is nestled deep inside the fertile
Shenandoah Valley.
There is a river that runs amok
like a rabid, winded wildcat in
the shadows of temptation.
And then there’s a back-country
woman that just won’t leave my
hesitated mind.
Taking time
to worry all about her,
risking heartache
to forever go
without her—
it seems like such an unfair penance,
like the result of prison’s popular
undeserved sentences.
Getting by without a proper windshield,
it’s starting to look as if my drummer
really is too far off the mark.
Wishes to again cross that princess on
that old and dusty road.
In the end it’s a crime that, quite
simply, has no motive.
And I’m paying my sentence daily for
being a prince—and not the most
handsome toad in the land.

A seed
as trim
when frills
are mine
in Roanoke
shall shine
Blue Ridge
Mountain Skies
again with
appellation contrôlée
in my
appetite and
a year
away in
Virginia and
tannin taste
sure today.

Your eyes shine brighter
Than the milky way veiwed from Shenandoah
And twinkle more
Than all of the attacks and special effects in anime

The sound of the wind chime      
Is enough to break a tired soul,  
With its ringing so lonesome and low--
Cold.            
Like the floor you slept upon
While you were becoming a man,
With the radio
Somewhere in the distance
Humming songs about the river
And the promise you made to him
To love his daughter.

Four score and seventy one years ago,
fifty thousand men, in blue and gray
divided, became one, in red united
to consecrate the ground where we
now stand.  From the Shenandoah
Valley, and the Potomac banks they
marched, and fell at Cemetery Hill,
Little Round Top, and Devil's Den.

But on this day, they rise to give
meaning to their sacrifice; they leave
behind their sabers and their musket
rifles, their cannon silent, their battle
done; they rise in peace at Gettysburg,
they rise at dawn with the morning sun.

The Day I Hit The Bear

The day started out like most days in the mountains. The sky was bright but not entirely sunny. It was a Friday morning at 8:37 when I pulled out of my ‘economy’ motel on the eastern outskirts of Roanoke.

I had spent the previous afternoon (Thursday) riding the Blue Ridge Parkway from the Carolina border to Roanoke. It was after 6 and the heavy tree formation along the Parkway had started to darken the road, so I decided to call it a day. Too many animals call that time of night nirvana for me to feel safe after dusk anymore.

After a quick stop at ‘Denny’s” it was off to bed in the $41.00 motel I found just off the entrance to the Parkway. I slept great, as I always do on the road and woke up at seven raring to go. After a gas-up and ‘breakfast’ at the B.P. station, I was back up the entrance ramp onto the parkway and making the left turn that would take me North all the way to Front Royal Virginia.

As I started North, I got to thinking. I was riding my beloved Venture Royale, which I had always referred to as just the ‘Venture.’ Most guys I know after establishing a love affair with their motorcycle name their bike like they do their children and dogs. I never had — it was just the Venture.

After 150,000 of the most unbelievable miles anyone could imagine, the bike still had the name it was given by its manufacturer  I had always felt guilty about that, but never seemed to be able to come up with the appropriate name.

As I left the Blue Ridge Parkway and entered Shenandoah National Park (Skyline Drive), the sky darkened and the posted speed limit dropped to 35. I’ve always wondered why the speed limit was only 35 here yet 45 on the Parkway just below. The makeup and complexion of the roads looked identical or at least so it seemed. It’s a long ride through the park to Front Royal at 35mph, and if you don’t stop you might make it in about three hours.

I was now at a consistent elevation above 3000 feet and the air and shrubbery started to feel and look like the Rocky Mountains. I stopped at a rest stop to use the facilities and drink some water and then quickly got back on the road because my goal was to make it to the Pennsylvania line before dark.

The Bike was running as well as it ever has, and after 22 years of faithful service that’s saying a lot. There are only 2 states we haven’t been to together (Mississippi and Rhode Island), and I’ve got both of them on my short list to round out the lower 48. The Venture, there I go again calling it something so bland, has also been to Alaska twice. It has made 5 cross-country trips and my favorite, a 10-day Odyssey with my son going up one side of the Rockies and down the other. The memories of our times together came flooding back as I rounded a large bend in the road to the left.

Then it happened !

Before I could react, downshift, or even pull the brake lever, it was directly in front of me. I saw it, and my life flashed in front of me at exactly the same time. It was a black bear, and it looked to be full size. Before I could even exhale it was less than a foot from the front tire of the bike.

BAMMMMM ! It hit like a sledgehammer. First it sounded like a small explosion just behind the front wheel on the left side. Then the back of the bike lifted up about two feet in the air. I had hit the bear and then run over it as it passed under the bike.

We’ve all heard stories about near death experiences that cause your life to flash in front of your eyes in that very instant. Trust me, it’s true, and here’s what flashed through mine.

Anyone who knows me, knows about my lifelong love for motorcycles and motorcycling. My first ‘car’ was a BSA Gold Star that I had in High School. My mother never knew about it because YES VIRGINIA — my Grandmother and Grandfather let me hide it in their garage.

I bought the first 750 Honda when it was introduced in 1970, rode it all through college and believe me when I say those Penn State winters were brutal. I didn’t know it was called Hypothermia, but I experienced it every week between November and March. I dated my Wife on that motorcycle and am lucky that I still have it tucked away in the back of my garage today.

Combined with my love for Motorcycles is my love of the mountains and the Rockies in particular. I have spent almost all of my vacation time during the past 30 years riding, touring, and exploring the Rocky Mountain West.

As a result of my time in the Rockies, about 25 years ago I also developed a love for bears. All bears. I love Black Bears, Grizzly Bears and Polar Bears, but if forced to choose the Grizzly would be my favorite. My 2 close encounters in Yellowstone, and my 1 in Glacier, with large Brown Bears changed my perception of life and what it means forever. I was totally at their mercy. Looking into their eyes, which the so-called experts warn you against, was a life altering experience that I’m glad to have done

Now, back to what flashed through my mind when the bear was about to make contact. It all seemed to happen in slow motion but I thought as I hit him that if this was truly the end — how lucky I was! YES LUCKY. To end my life doing the thing I loved the most, in a place (A National Park) I loved most being, and to have it ended by an animal that meant more to me than any other. It all just seemed fitting and right.

In that instant I was ready to go, and in a strange and still unexplainable way, I was almost thankful for it happening the way it did.

And then before I had even blinked my eyes, the rear of the bike was back down on the road and now sliding to the right. I counter-steered as I was taught when road racing, and after drifting across both lanes the bike ‘******’ straight up and started heading North again. Instinctively I looked in my rear view mirror and saw the bear run off into the tall grass on the side of the road and then collapse.

I went about fifty yards further up the road and stopped the bike and got off. It was damaged in the front and just slightly leaking. The radiator cowling was broken off and part of the lower fairing was gone. There was organic material all over my left tailpipe which I would later find out was brain matter from the bear. I got off the bike and walked back to where I thought the bear was laying.

He was right where I had seen him collapse and he had a huge opening in his skull where he had made contact with the bike. As terrible as this made me feel, something else made me feel even worse, --- he was still breathing.

Two hikers (a husband and wife), about my age were now walking toward the bear and had seen the whole thing happen. They were locals and worried that there may be more bears around. They both suggested that we leave the area quickly. They told me there was a rest stop two miles further up the Parkway on the left and that I would be able call a Ranger to come and assist (shoot) the bear. I thanked them as they left and watched them head down the trail directly across the road from where the bear and I now were.

I got back on the bike and hurried up to the rest stop. Just as the couple had instructed the nice woman behind the counter called the Ranger Station and they sent a USFS Officer named Gary Roth to talk to me. I pleaded with the Ranger to forget about me, (I was fine), and to please go help the bear. I was pretty sure the bear was unconscious, but even then, you can sometimes still feel pain.

That Ranger spent almost two hours with me, first checking my driver’s license and registration, insurance card, etc. I’m sure he was also doing a back round check on me when he went back to his SUV, and all the while the poor bear was lying in trauma on the side of the road.

These Park Officials claim to love their charges, the animals in the park, but today it didn’t seem that way. I would have gladly given the officer my bike keys and identification, which he could have kept while going back to help (dispatch) the bear. ‘NO’ was all he replied back when I made that suggestion.

Finally, the Ranger left after thanking me for stopping and filing the report. He told me that most people who hit bears (on average one a month) don’t even stop to report it. At this time of the year the bears are very active, as they are foraging incessantly for food, trying to gain weight before hibernation. They are more vulnerable to car and motorcycle traffic in the fall than at any other time. He also told me that I was the only one in his memory (19 years in the park), to have hit a bear on a motorcycle and to have walked (ridden) away.

As I watched him head South on Skyline Drive, I looked at the sorry state of the Venture. I felt guiltier than ever, still referring to my beloved, and now damaged bike, in such an objective way. I decided to ride back to where I had hit the bear and make sure the Ranger did what he said he would do.  By the time I traveled the two miles to where the bear had been, the ranger was gone and there was no sight of the bear. However he did it, the Ranger had removed the bear quickly and took him to wherever they take animals that have been killed on the road.

I turned the bike around and headed North again. As I passed the rest stop I looked over to see if maybe the Ranger had come back, but the parking lot was now empty except for one lone moped parked off on the grass to the right of the building. ‘Must be a camper,’ I thought to myself.

Looking straight North again in the direction of Front Royal, I noticed the ‘Venture Royale’ badge on the dashboard of the bike. An epiphany then happened that had never happened while riding before.

                                THE BEAR / THE BEAR !!!

I would never again refer to my beloved motorcycle as the Venture again. The spirit of something primordial had overcome both of us today and allowed us to survive. From this moment on, the bike will forever be known as — THE BEAR.

Roanoke Virginia
October 2012

Today, sitting in the library waiting for it to be time to go to work, I've decided that its a good time to write about some things that I've been keeping to myself for a while. Victor Frankl has convinced me to live as if I've done it already and now can make good on my promises and make different choices than the last go round (which was one helluva doosie). I should be looking for a house instead, or maybe hunting for that second job I need to take. But what's the difference between one house or another, or even a cardboard box out by the mall if there's no eventual destination one has in mind. So I'm going to write down my dream for the future, a wholesome dream I keep very close because its so real to me. There are other dreams of course, other lives I'm tempted to seek and have tried in the past to actualize, mostly out of a desire to escape, to be somebody else. But this dream is the real one, the true one that is all the more precious because it can belong only to me, whereas sailing the high seas or tramping through unexplored jungles could belong to anybody with a mind to do it. My dream has more to do with minor things, things that don't take herculean courage or a doctorate in linguistics. Things like taking the kids out for ice cream on a hot day. Or piling everybody into the car for the drive from our house in Floyd up to Woodstock for the Shenandoah County Fair. Singing all the old songs and some of the new as we wind our way through the Blueridge. Maybe somebody has a summer cold so Charlotte and I have to hunt for tissues in all the places where they might be, and then find them in the back with the kids where we put them in the first place. And then finally getting there, late probably, so that everybody else is already at the grounds and we can hear the announcer at the cart races as we unpack the car. And then there they all are, my Mother and Stepfather, Uncle and Aunt and Cousins and the Grand Parents deciding to come again this year, though its getting hard for them to make the drive from Virginia Beach. So we all head up to the track to catch the last of that days races, covered in sweat and bumping into random people, a four-year old perched on my shoulders, not just because it's fun for him but also so Charlotte and I can keep track of the other children easier. I can see the magic in their faces as we waddle around the pavilions full of animals for the livestock auctions. Our six year-old daughter gravely points out to her mother that there's something wrong with that turkey in the pen, it's the wrong color. She has only ever seen the wild turkey's around our place, never a domestic white. Charlotte shoots a quick smile at me, trying hard not to laugh as she explains to our daughter why not all turkey's are as pretty as the ones that live near our house. And then before ya know it the sun's going down and it's almost time for the live music to start. So we all wind up in the bleachers again, listening to old country singers whose songs I haven't heard in thirty years, sharing funnel cakes and singing along while I'm wiping powdered sugar off of little noses with my shirt. I could go further, talk about how we decided to keep heading North after the fair, up on to Skyline Drive and Front Royal, and visited the old Firestation where my Great-Grandfather volunteered in the days before there was a McDonald's. But I won't flatten things with too many details. They're not that important sometimes anyway.  What is important, is that when I see these things in my mind's eye, they're clear as if they've already happened. As if I'm remembering the night at the fair with my Family last summer, and writing about it now after I'm done grading papers and the children are getting ready for bed. There's splashing and laughing from a bathroom where it sounds like there's less bathing and more tickling going on, Charlotte laughing hardest of all. I write of this, and I know deep down inside, that I've found something I lost a long, long time ago. As if a lost civilization's Golden Age is sailing out of the mists, building's putting themselves back together and beautiful trees growing right before my eyes. I've got to go now though, I need to help Charlotte dry off the kids and then show the youngest how to make the best PB&J; sandwich ever, the same way my Dad taught me.

Yesterday was the last day of Summer
September rain pounds like the inevitable drummer

We planned on scaling the Shenandoah mountains just before sunset
our calves aching and our hands clenched tightly yet
intertwined with each other
inhaling the rich color
lamenting how it disappears behind the horizon to forget

We talked of driving along that scenic Smoky mountain byway
stumbling into a local diner off the highway
the first expedition to fathom
sleeping in that rustic cabin
breathing in dying cedar embers as we drifted away

We intended swimming that final night at the Lakes pool
diving under the water when lifeguards whistled their final rule
pretending that we could not hear
trudging into the car with dripping gear
leaving behind damp seats as concerns for some future fool

But there was the appointment about the lipoma
and the tele-con with the customer in Tacoma
opportunities come slowly but hasten to pass over

Today is the first day of Autumn
We should do something in Autumn

Eros
Someone who tastes like
Ramune and Faygo, smells
Like Shenandoah

Mania
Waiting for six months
Only to find that you are
Eighteen and fourteen

Philia
Eyes just like snowmelt
Soft, cool, and fresh in the spring
Small signs of some hope

Ludus
A homecoming dance
Bumping bodies in a crowd
When your date ditches

Agape
The news surrounds us
Against suburban ap'thy
We are fighting back

Storge
Speaking of the sea
Advanced chemistry, and of
Secrets kept from mom

Pragma
One year of dating
But the sun and earth go back
Farther than we do

Philautia
Maybe we'll see it
Like a rose blooming forth from
Torrential blizzards

Morn
While you were sleeping God made a new one a day starting with a beautiful morning. He took a little
Splash of sunshine added a dash of hope he carries the greatest basket filled with Gardenias roses irises
To many others to mention they all are moist from a select and special dew from his private collection he
Draws them out with care and at select locations he puts them to his face and then gently blows
Uncommon fragrances over the country side you could say unnoticed better to say unseen he does
Nature’s bidding he looks ever watchful keeping the rhythm in tune with the divine design.

Before you ever stir to meet the new day he sends the most beautiful rays they cast their spell on the
Dogwood tree the fields he fills with his sweet silent thoughts they surround the visitor their weighted
Voluminous thickness enriches the air the birds are first to feel this electrifying evidence of his havening
Had passed this way they try to match the songs they chirp to this delirious natural order to the most
Part they succeed their dreamy charms pass over the window sill up the sleeping form they with lightest
Touch softly announces magic waits in all the borders of your waking world.

This happens in the Shenandoah Valley in meadows soft rolling hills in wooded glades streams glisten as
This all consuming charged air travels unbidden but still ordered it is welcomed and it slips on as a
Bucket to full it jostles out like stirred and brimming laughter it baths the breadth and height of the
Country side willfully with power it creates even crisper lines than the sun originally exposed eyes see
Deeper hues more tasteful shapes like seeing a long lost friend after a long absence these emotions
Surge through the body heart and soul what is missing in this perfect picture the Sun blazes the trees seem to stretch and yawn the flowers
Now awake the night covers have been gathered and are being refreshed waiting till dusk announces its
Time for them to stand in as the sun slowly slips down in the western sky. A time for opportunity you are the brush that fills in the painting that you will hang on the walls of your life your friends will be pleased for the depth and emotions that will arrest their vision when they look at the still calm that your living portrait captures. The peaks of the house draw your sight up the walls to this mounted finished perfection as the morning is the head of the day all flows down as the backdrop of activity glows as you pass test that enlarge your soul and spirit ever is the object to others I am the best friend when I am a servant drawn to others by love’s care and duty.

I followed a thin blue line
between the folds of a map.
I passed by rivers wider than time,
mountains larger than life,
and traveled through valleys
tucked between canyon walls.
I have been from the east coast
of Niagara Falls,
to the west coast
of California's golden shores.
I have seen the Shenandoah River,
explored the Appalachian Trail,
and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
I have gazed at those
white capped mountains,
while the sun slowly set behind them,
setting fire to the sky  
with swirling oranges,
yellows, pinks, and reds.
I have fallen in love
with the open road,
with the freedom
of a full tank of gas,
and no destination.
I found my soul on this road,
but I hope to find a place
to bring this soul home.
I imagine a place,
somewhere along California's shores,
where I can rest my head,
and finally start something more.

he was sitting back on a shaded picnic table
his wooden cane laying across the bench
peering towards Luray and Shenandoah Park
absorbing it's beauty while he still had the chance
I was on my morning walk
a few miles
my attempt to remain in some semblance of shape
stave off the inevitable for a bit longer
I wasn't far behind this gentleman
perhaps in his late 70's
10 - 15 years passes like an unrecognizable blur
when you reach this stage
what was he thinking about
I wondered
the kids he never sees
the wife that may or may not still share his days
or perhaps...the love that he let slip away
into the fading mist...his past
I thought I'd say hello on the next pass
but he was gone

Wicked winds howled senseless from Great Lakes to Navajo
Screaming eulogies for the frantic madmen
And the love of rage they shot their veins black with
And the additive-free sadness that filled their lungs with ashes
Broke down church bells tolled, once, twice, three times on the hour
Resounding enough to wake Virgina her revered dead
The heart of mighty Shenandoah beats in shades of revolutionary red
And DC sleeps uneasy under armed guard
Here is where your mother lies and bleeds empathy to the tune of Suburbia's solemn hymns
And here is where your brother ticks his weight in manic speculation and nervous wondering
And here is where you straddle the nuclear armaments of culture atop the shoulders of those lonely mad giants you hold so dear
A dying breed, a skeletal frame of burning purpose and relentless conviction
The last great hunter of the American Dream
They said their prayers, their rosaries, and their benedictions floated carelessly off to nothing, from nothing
Laid to rest on the edge of a cornfield six feet under cold Earth and laughing heavens
Heads bowed in lurid admiration tempered with contempt
For the soul of the devil of the world to come

I watch these documentaries
About East Of the Mississippi Legends
Like Popcorn Sutten and D Ray White
The sound of Hank III on lonesome guitar
Or perhaps the pleading pull of sad violin
A tear slips as I too remember
When I used to be Wild
Running barefoot through dew drenched grass
I want to breathe that air again
The air of the Wild
They live on through fan or family
Each has lit a fire
Some under copper stills
Others on the heals of mountain dancing shoes
Smoke continues to roll out from under those of us affected
Our eyes searching each rain for more of the same
Boone County is beautiful
Something  to write home about
All in one these  coal stripped mountains are a larger than life package
That will steal your very breath
Replacing it with back woods romance
Late night campfire stories
Not to mention the heady fragrance of Paw Paw perfume
I grew up nestled between the Appalachia
Lush valley of the Shenandoah
I thought I knew what mountains were

I was wrong.

When was the last time I felt like this
This curious euphoria, this eagerly learning bliss?

Thinking about it, I've felt it before
The first time being when I was four

When I had tried my own little tests
An encyclopedia convinced me that science was the best

And then again when I was six
I saw a table in a PTA mist

And I became a Brownie Girl Scout
Because I liked badges and camps and helping others out

And when I reached the age of seven
I picked up a violin and found heaven

And in middle school in a Floridian vale
I felt that same rush when I learned how to sail

And in grade eight in the city of Detroit
I found my passion with my activist's voice

As an underclassman, my heart reached new highs
Hiking up to touch the Shenandoah skies

There's been so many choices that I've made
That exhilarated me and made me who I became

And feeling this now as I first try to code
I know I've found a new passion for my mind to download

Wide eyed and open in astonishment I watch
Those long and curving red nailed fingers
Close around me in the evening,
Sun setting in the windows of the Hudson
Shenandoah or St. Augustine.
You gather yourself down
And hurl your graceful throat against me.

Wide eyed and open in astonishment you rise
Toward long slow strokes
My hands above you in the morning,
Daylight in the windows of New Jersey
Rhinebeck or the Appalachians.
Your belly rises in my hand
My fingers splay inside your shivering.

There have been many places; fields and orchards
Tombs and cenotaphs,
Anthems and arias,
Airports, winter moons and summer winds.
Gasping at some place just newly touched.

Quite often in the night I find I have reached up and out
And wondered why there is no weight above my empty hands.

Then, open and astonished,
I feel that you have come to rest within them.
Close my curving hands around you,
Remember other moons.

12/15/2015

"You, doctor, go from breakfast
to madness."
Anne Sexton

The engine of my amygdala:
                   so burnt out
I needed coolant, I needed something to prevent my
   immolation
a sort of precautionary measure

***'s flammable
  I'd soon find out
In a crowd of hundred dark and
smoke crawled through my shoulders
    social little parasite
apologize for being an interruption to everyone

   "Wish I could've been there"
Sucrose altruism,
back at the mental hospital id relived
every single second with you

thinking of your anger I read Tennessee William's letters
I loved you

I even loved your hatred.
A girl across the hall screaming
about Jesus and her ****
shouting singing Shenandoah

"But I don't need to be here,"
   I turned to my roommate,
a strong figure I still admire,
"Everyone says that, even with a Thorazine needle halfway down their ***."

They'd had a name for it
Something about kisses, I don't remember

"Yeah, it leaves a huge bruise on
your ***," they laughed in the
tv parlor

there we were
The tristate area's teenage
girls too unstable for the world

a step above "oh, you know how
teenagers are"
A girl with grey eyes

Came in my last night there
"Is it normal to cry on your
first day?"

I wasn't allowed to
even touch her shoulder
and so

with the alcohol and the
Lamotrogine I tried to figure
out where it'd all gone wrong

but it'd been hiding in me
psychotic seed,
a virus carrier a patient zero of my own

tepid insanity!

Feeling marked and wicked
Silk skin stretched tight across the starving pain of my wanting
Stretching. Breathing. Breaking. Needing.
Ease this tension I must. I must.
The wet rage of the Shenandoah between my thighs
A soft rumble in the distance heralds the coming storm
I can almost feel you in me
Aching for you to fill the slick hollow that I keep hidden
Need you closer, closer, closer
Please
Begging so pretty against the distance
Please

sleepy little Staunton
      music making
         lights on!

Shakespeare alive in Staunton
Lights on; Dr. Cohen.

We in the back row
Prospero is knowin'

Staunton all in snow
I drive home in night

Maybe Infinite I know
Things don't work out right

But wondrous strange is true
And well worth the fight.

stopping by Staunton in snow
        it’s true - amazed by Romeo
                drive home: Fire on my radio ...


                               Play on! Play on!

Fr. Greeley and Paris, France
      Shenandoah Shiva, shamanic trance
                       Lord of the Dance!

She Wrote Again

She wrote again. I found her
letters, looking for the storm
of him.  The wind knocked
red hair, the black boots left
outside the door.  I read that

he left on a Sunday, walked
away without his trademark
whistle trailing Oh Shenandoah
behind him.  

The dim days followed.  She
asked everyone, where he was,
his blue eyes a DNA call away
from her.  There was no
response.  

She had no speech left and
the nurses were glad to be
rid of the man in the picture
on her broken table, broken
between the war years and
liberation.

She glanced backwards in
her dementia.  The rough
hewn Sundays, the lost
afternoons.  Her disappearances
not the less tiresome, were
gone.

She wrote letters over the same
paper, shop worn stationery,
over and over.

When she stopped it was on a
sunny afternoon.  No one knew
she left for the day before his
kiss became goodbye, with a
smile of relief.  

Caroline Shank
1.11.2023

Dr. Cohen in Staunton
I listen. I learn. I laugh.
I love thee Jack Falstaff!

The conclusion of the American Civil War commenced with the articles of surrender agreement of the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, at Appomattox Court House, by General Robert E. Lee and concluded with the surrender of the CSS Shenandoah on November 6, 1865, bringing the hostilities of the American Civil War to a close.

The First Juneteenth occurred on June 19, 1865, nearly two years after President Abraham Lincoln emancipated enslaved Africans in America, Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas with news of freedom. More than 250,000 African Americans embraced freedom by executive decree in what became known as Juneteenth or Freedom Day.

Legally, the war did not end until a proclamation by President Andrew Johnson on August 20, 1866, when he declared "that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquillity, and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole of the United States of America.

Major General Gordon Granger
led the Union Soldiers to Galveston, Texas,
to announce the end of the Civil war
and the freedom of all enslaved people.

Jim Crow sat perched
over the event horizon
waiting in the wings,
which brought darkened
(non-sheltering) skies
not only for the hot pocket
of suddenly emancipated
persons of color,
who would subsequently experience
immense prejudice
upon their embarkation

as (no pun intended)
"masters" of their own selves
while attempting to eke out a living
dirt poor, yet resourceful
hunkering down on plantations,
which property eminent domain
of federal government,
(a political entity
characterized by union
of partially self-governing provinces,

states, or other regions),
whereby said body electric
codified, fortified, and indemnified
manifest destiny, a phrase
coined in 1845, the idea
that United States destined—
by God advocates believed—
to expand its dominion
and spread democracy and capitalism
across the entire North American continent.

Though institution of slavery
supposedly rendered null and void
at the stroke of a pen
(courtesy Abraham Lincoln)
well actual legislation
passed by Congress on January 31, 1865,
and ratified on December 6, 1865,
the 13th Amendment abolished slavery
in the United States.

Nevertheless merciless abuse
heaped upon the *****
despite their legal status
being Granted leeway
to persevere life, liberty
and pursuit of happiness.

Recognition as equal brethren
among collective soul of American
fraught with bitter aversion,
condemnation, and *******
of physical and verbal violence
against people of color,
whose melanin enriched complexion
birthrights rendered hidebound
severely limited
inalienable rights as declared
in Declaration of Independence,

now still utter abhorrence
regarding treatment
of those proud enterprising people,
whose once storied
African past left in tatters
leaving sparse threads
woven together by diligent dogged research
nsync with twenty first century technology
to allow, enable and provide opportunity
to stitch together a more complete tapestry
and spiritual fusion of shackled ancestors.

Hard fought (videre licet
tooth and nail) gains
won on ****** battlefields and boardrooms
also witnessed the unfortunate tragic sacrifice
of additional courageous lives linkedin
to pursuit of desegregation
ushered commencement
of Civil Rights Movement
a social movement and campaign
from 1954 to 1968 in the United States

to abolish legalized racial segregation,
discrimination, and disenfranchisement
not only for people of color,
but other mentally, physically
and spiritually challenged
in the country, nevertheless
election day November fifth 2024
promises to exhume the ghosts of yesteryear
courtesy nine hundred page tome
Mandate for Leadership

laying bare (I make no bones
about said door stopper
of Trumpist tract)
to take figurative hatchet
and chop away sacred coveted freedoms,
whereby significant progressive gains
will be rescinded towards
a predominant swath of people
transforming the land of milk and honey
into a frightful dystopian nightmare.

Shenandoah Shakespeare into the night
     Staunton in snow, Blackfriars in light
            To sing is to know, to play is alright.

                                   Delight!