The Rendering
I sat in my opinion, holding my breath, painting one of my granddaughters on canvas. Focused... focusing...preoccupied and yet present, listening to the Breaking News on my television screen. Bracing myself, shoulders hunched and back stiff. Being raised in the segregated South, witnessing fruit that was not so strange ( but seen far too often) and being mentally molested at birth by Jim Crow has tempered me to stand flat-footed in the face of racial injustices. I heard myself join in with a world wide collective sigh of relief. A pregnant pause followed although I'm no so sure why ( perhaps because we still have so far to go). Crying ghost tears. Stifling a smile of relief, not so much for myself but for all those who carried the martyr-ship of yet another son, brother, father, and friend. Imagine being born to die in order to raise a nation's consciousness. I hear the phrase " He was a bouquet of humanity" wafting from the television filling my office, permeating out of the raised window reaching up to an awaiting afternoon sun. Indeed George Floyd, your life was not in vain my friend. Take your place amongst the greats who also poured out their spirits in public spaces, while breathing their last breath surrounded by strangers who watched helplessly and stupefied. You now know the answers to all the questions from the place you sit. God have mercy on us as we endeavor to carry on.