I found myself with more black people than white.
There were a couple of Asians in the outside lanes.
Women and men in running shoes.
Some kids, a guy older than me.
Were we a demographic?
It was a high school running track
in a suburb of Denver.
The sun had just risen over the plains
lighting up some mountains to the west.
I encountered some smiles and greetings,
some eyes merely looking at the painted lines
going round the oval track.
I will be blunt, I thought that we were all
more together than apart.
One guy ran fast, sweat beaded on his face.
I managed one lap breathing heavily
and then I mostly sat on my butt, watching.
History is against us.
Humanity might be for us.
But only, perhaps, if we spend more time
with each other
than apart.
Maybe one day we will talk
with each other
when our faces grow more familiar.
Once more, I will be blunt.
Perhaps my big red nose and their dark skin
will matter less
than the lines on a running track.
You will have noticed, to be sure,
that I noticed them.
But you should have seen the blues
and the greens
and the dark red running track.
I will be blunt.
Each face that I saw
was human and different.
Together, we exercised a little.
Apart, we forget
what we should remember.
5 comments:
This reminds me of how everyone can come together after a natural disaster strikes, to work together to get things cleaned up and repaired / rebuilt. There is no time to think of differences, although they may be noticed. But there isn't time for asking about church membership or political party or other personal preferences. You just work together for a common purpose. Once the disaster passes, some will return to their usual differentiating, but there will also be some new relationships made that break through those barriers. It is almost a forced togetherness in order to cope / survive. Yours is chosen, which is a different perspective. Noticing differences can be a wonderful thing. It depends what we do with our perceptions of those differences. We enjoy the amazing colors and shapes of flowers, for example, so why not also enjoy the differences we see in people? But to make judgments according to those differences is a different matter.
I often find in writing that I tell myself things that had been outside of my active awareness. Such as that humans prefer to talk to familiar faces/people. Choosing to simply be with people over time, may be more significant in us becoming less strange to each other than we think. Duh! Yet how often do I actually go to unfamiliar places? It will take time to reduce the wound of racism. It's past time to at least try to start to do more. Thanks, Jocelyn, for your thoughtful comment.
"History is against us.
Humanity might be for us."
These are the lines that are sticking with me, probably because I have a tendency towards analyzing things. It kind of makes me want to turn my back on history, except I know that would be a mistake. Perhaps it is that history makes humanity possible?
I usually tend toward literal representation rather than impressionism when I write. As I wrote, I will be blunt. You can take that anyway you like.
'History' and 'humanity' are two words that represent almost all of human experience. I might have said, human beings have so often done the wrong things over time but our collective experience - which shapes who human beings are now - still gives us the capacity to be the 'good' that humans can be. Now there's a mouthful. And, I think that is essentially what you just said.
Here's a good question: Can people learn from their mistakes?
bert
Or will they (or me)?
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