#this us us

[dutch-american]

[xanadontit]

So maybe watching a show where someone has a miscarriage on the day before Thanksgiving isn’t the best call for me.

[whippedcloudsofcream]

This Is Us S1E8: Pilgrim Rick

[thecartelqueen]

If you need me I'll be watching This is us and sobbing

[ificouldbringyouback]

This is Us writers: "it will be a long time before we find out what happened to Jack"

LOL JK. WE'RE GOING TO TEAR YOUR HEARTS OUT INSTEAD.

[calgary-bones]

do you have any idea how my heart breaks for Kevin ?! I can't breathe.

[hamoimproviso]

I didn't know this poet, but thanks to excellent tv series This Is Us, I do now. That show is superb and richly human. Wildly perceptive and true. It also has great music and handy references. Randall in the show is named for Dudley Randall. A favored poet of his biological father who is now dying of cancer. It slips back and forth in time and allows you the intelligence to just go with it. It's also funny and charming and beautifully acted by mostly absurdly beautiful people. This poem is stunning, hard hitting and beautiful. Written after the bombing, as Dressed All In Pink was written after Kennedy was shot. Once this was how we reflected on the news... Ballad of Birmingham BY DUDLEY RANDALL (On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963) “Mother dear, may I go downtown Instead of out to play, And march the streets of Birmingham In a Freedom March today?” “No, baby, no, you may not go, For the dogs are fierce and wild, And clubs and hoses, guns and jails Aren’t good for a little child.” “But, mother, I won’t be alone. Other children will go with me, And march the streets of Birmingham To make our country free.” “No, baby, no, you may not go, For I fear those guns will fire. But you may go to church instead And sing in the children’s choir.” She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, And bathed rose petal sweet, And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, And white shoes on her feet. The mother smiled to know her child Was in the sacred place, But that smile was the last smile To come upon her face. For when she heard the explosion, Her eyes grew wet and wild. She raced through the streets of Birmingham Calling for her child. She clawed through bits of glass and brick, Then lifted out a shoe. “O, here’s the shoe my baby wore, But, baby, where are you?”