Black Lives Matter. That Includes Me.

 It's both aggravating and comforting that Black Lives Matter gets followed up with All Lives Matter.

On one hand, it's comforting because the person telling me is an ally and says it out of allyship, that he or she always believed my life matters, always included minorities as equals.

On the other hand, it's aggravating when it comes from a person who insinuates that I have no reason or right to single out Black lives as mattering. It's not that the BLM movement is singling out Black lives to elevate them ABOVE all others. To the contrary, we want to be elevated to EQUALITY. Why does this argument still have to be pointed out? Wtf?

Anyone whose intent is to shut me up and "put me in my place" by saying All Lives Matter can go fuck themselves.

Blue Lives Matter. Wow. There's no such thing as a Blue Life unless you're referencing a fucking Smurf. The uniform is blue. It's an occupation that comes with occupational hazards. It comes with a badge that confers authority to use deadly force. It's almost unquestioned. The blue uniform can be removed at the end of a shift. The badge can be misused and the power behind it can be abused. At what point in the day -- or in my life for that matter -- can I slink out of my skin?

That's a long introduction to see if readers have the stomach to read more. If you've stuck it out this long and aren't squeamish...

You want to know who I think I am

As if you have any business asking

But I’ll tell you

By my way of thinking, I belong here

I descend from kings and queens

Earth and bone

Silver and gold

Their blood still flowing strong in my veins

So I speak of we

When I say me

To read the rest of my poem, purchase the journal. Pages 22-23...https://www.tywi.org/black-lives-matter.html

The Young Writers Initiative launched The Black Lives Matter Project with a literary journal. 

My poem You Want to Know Who I Think I Am is included on Pages 22-23, as well as my friend Phebe Yawson's piece Black Hope begins on Page 24.

The journal is well done and simply stunning. It's a tremendous honor to be included with such luminous talent and voices.

Be well, stay safe and have a magical day!

Mackenzie

Poetry - Untitled

I shared my highs
I shared my light
I let you into my joy

We danced in spring rain
We swam in summer's sun
We dove headlong into piles of autumn leaves
Where were you in winter?

My lows scared you
My shadow left you cold
I reached for you in my despair

This is all of myself
I can't be the shiny half of me all year long
My whole self must embrace winter
Knowing with a calm assurance that it, too, won't last

Mackenzie Littledale
May 1, 2019

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Be well and have a magical day!

POETRY - Wishing Well

Wishing Well

On my way home
I stopped in the park on an impulse
For a flash, I thought I could wish for God
To hear me for once
I dropped a quarter down a well
Wishing savagely to be heard
Whether God be furious or lighthearted or amused

The whole time I prayed
My heart pounding like a timpani
A crescendo that could end in an aria
Or a fatal stroke signalling the end

The whole time I waited
Wondering how God would answer
Would I see a soaring bird?
A crash of thunder?
A delicate Monarch?

The whole time I danced
My limbs murmuring secrets
Lusty pirouettes
Encircling dreams

My coins never made a sound
As though there is no bottom to my wasting away in time

Mackenzie Littledale

POETRY - Stray Lines #6

Stray Lines VI

In the stillness of a Japanese garden

Whispering creek flowing

Busyness under every leaf

In the stillness, my spirit growing

6/23/18

Mackenzie Littledale

Japanese Garden at Atlanta Botanical Gardens
Photo: Mackenzie Littledale

POETRY - On Miguel Padura's [painting] "July Sunlight"

On Miguel Padura’s July Sunlight

I opened the door late in the day

Still at this late hour, the light was so vibrant and sharp, I could nearly make out the grinding scrape of it across the walls and the floor.  A light so vigorous and determined, I was certain I heard the rattle of the window pane, struggling not to give way.

A pre-adolescent girl simply standing.

In passing observation, it seemed she stood in silence,

Not really glaring, but certainly attenuated in my direction

She asked nothing, not even why I was there uninvited, unannounced

In this presumed silence was housed an encapsulated possibility

Of any sound

All that remained though, was the rush of water from a new faucet in the old bathtub

Claw feet of bronze going nowhere from here

By and by, as my soul slowly began to fully join the presence of the room,

I detected myriad invisible languages each take their turn…

First, her eyes:

There’s no telling what can happen when 100 year-old eyes in a 10 year-old girl notice you’re there uninvited

You may choose not to believe the gnawing whisper in your head that she’s 10 times ahead of you in some way.  Je ne sais pas

Her eyes’ careful study and concentration radiate waves of resolutions that have answered their own questions, though absent any concern for accuracy

(She is after all, only about 10)

Her shadow screeched, carving out a girl-shaped hole through the rays of the sun, mirroring her sharp edges.

It settled itself plaintively across the floor

This young girl, so peculiar in her way and vibrations and mysteriously sophisticated energies,

Caught a shaft of light, otherwise impossible for less worldly girls, for that light-catching was intentional

Even now, when I’m quite sure I’ve heard more than can even make a sound,

The delicate rustling of her white, linen smock coos tenderly like a tiny dove.

Lino bianco.  This song perhaps ministers to her, evening her rage,

Her indignant concern over my intrusion

Or perhaps over her own tired memory

What I listen for, and yet cannot hear,

Is the secret of her memory

Of this, there is nothing more than an unintelligible murmur

Nothing seems to touch this room,

Save for the echo of God, in one of His moods.

What has this child been told of the world?

8/6/02   

Mackenzie Littledale

backstory:
I'd given myself an assignment to visit the art museum and write 5 pieces of poetry on 5 pieces of  art,  each of which had to focus on one of the 5 senses.  I hope to God I've destroyed the other 4 poems.  Rubbish.  Absolute rubbish.  This one got my seal of approval.  I can still see the painting in my mind's eye, though I've been utterly unsuccessful at finding an image of it online.

#MackenzieLittledale
#Poetry
#JulySunlight
#MiguelPadura
#MuseumofArtFortLauderdale

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POETRY - Future vs. FORTUNE 500

Future versus FORTUNE 500

I am a fertile field

You could plant a seed of most any variety

In the dark, rich soil of my womb

And I would discomfort myself to give safe harbor

At personal risk and expense

Make a clearing within myself amongst my bones

To grow a bigger future

But the FORTUNE 500 is not interested

I am not an oil field buried at God’s insistence deep beyond the ocean floor

For that, the FORTUNE 500 would plan, plot, strategize

Drill most any distance

Face great risk and expense

In their furtive drilling, they will not notice the water, except that it’s in their way,

Put there for them to outwit

They will not marvel at the life

Not pay even a minute’s homage to the very source of their humble, single-celled beginnings

I am not oil

I am a woman.  Earth.  Soil.

I am a female

With a birthright ability to nurture and domicile the future

Like something of a primordial miracle motel, but yes of course

Something more

Just as my ancestors nurtured and domiciled me, my parents, grandparents

In black rich soil of wombs and we were nourished without having to ask

At great personal risk and expense

Though the risks are diminishing, the expense is increasing

Someone, after all, must get paid for delivering miracles

Regardless of the inflationary greed of strange capitalists, I am willing still to meet my birthright

But the FORTUNE 500 is not interested

Because I am not an oilfield, hidden in desperately hostile places

For this, they will negotiate with notorious liars, shake those hands and stretch their dry, taut lips into well-honed businessmen’s smiles

They will hoist heavy machinery with tender loving skill

To feed insatiable will to power appliances and SUVs the world over

But I am not oil

I am an honest American woman

Abundant Earth.  Fertile soil.

I am a woman, this woman

Watching with great interest, yet no matter how hard I try,

I remain puzzled at the academic sincerity of the FORTUNE 500

To quantify a balance sheet line item for intangible value

Yet a question to appraise the fertility of womb meets with blank stares

A most ironic impotence; surely the board of directors values the business of their balls

Here I am, miracle in waiting

And the FORTUNE 500 need not apply

For when they arrive with their enormous manly machinery

It is not to deliver, but to extract

Nothing they touch is ever left intact

Nothing they take is ever brought back

Groping, fattened hands, sausage-like fingers cannot build that which creates miracles

They will bump and grind into the Earth, deep into the womb,

Deplete the awesome, untether the sacred and release it to the profanity of market forces

To create value for shareholders

And if not, no matter, what they cannot create they can fabricate on the statement of income

A sleight of hand, perfected to the point of becoming rote

I am not oil

I am a woman, this woman

Plentiful Earth.  Earnest soil.

In want of perhaps a farmer, an industrious planter

Who finds comfort with this Earth

Who arrives before daybreak with seeds of tomorrow

Rising to ever make good of his hands, to share the risk and expense

His occupation no more construed as a necessary evil than rocking a baby

At harvest, he will collect and he will also replenish to the womb-soil what was fed to the future in the clearing amongst my bones

Whose craftsman’s hands will till blackened, rain-damp soil and not drill through it

As though Earth is in his way

But is itself the coveted prize of bigger future.

9/19/04

Mackenzie Littledale

MaxPixel

POETRY - Stray Lines #4

Stray Lines IV

This morning I woke up and all I could see

Was I need no apology, no pardon

In my reflection, all I could feel

Was the ecstasy of a butterfly in a garden

Mackenzie Littledale

6/19/2018

POETRY - Stray Lines #2

Stray Lines II

So much ado about freedom

So little to do with me

Seems all I know about freedom

I learned in captivity

6/16/94

Mackenzie Littledale

POETRY (Stray Lines #5)

Stray Lines V

Green leaves cradle curved, white petals

As white as a virgin bride’s dress

Revealing a center, upright and straight

Reaching to give the sky a caress

6/23/18

Mackenzie Littledale

POETRY - Passarinho (Little Bird)

Passarinho (Little Bird)

Is there really a little bird in there?

It’s so small, that eggshell

Can passarinho hear my voice?

The little chick, safe and warm,

May wonder if there’s another world outside that delicate shell

Maybe at this moment, passarinho doesn’t care

When passarinho is ready for the biggest breakthrough of her life

She’ll just know to start pecking

Born with persistence, she will not stop

Though now she can breathe through the hole

Though now she can see through the hole

She will not stop until that tiny breakthrough gives way completely

And she will emerge hungry and demanding and unyielding

No one will tell her to stay hungry

No one will tell her to be quiet

No one will suggest she go back into her shell

When passarinho outgrows the hole through which she escaped

6/30/2018

Mackenzie Littledale

POETRY - About a Painter

About a Painter

I still think of him

As a mortal         As a god

Fondly, still

Still waters

Flowing, dreamlike, under the surface

Glowing, radiating

And, as always, I smile

I remember how free, how full my heart could feel

Bursting at unforeseeable moments

Just to remember a gesture of his hand

Or a kind and knowing inflection in his voice

A certain color on his brush

The movement across a canvas

A knowing so deep, he can’t touch it

Only let it find its own way out

Into the world for me to find and the let the movement within

Touch me.  Affect me.  Change me,

In a sanctuary within me so deep I can’t touch it

But let it find its own way in

3/6/97

Mackenzie Littledale