My Child's Earth
Updated: Oct 18, 2021
The title for this poem was inspired by the 'Retreat from Racism,' as hosted by Margaret 'Peggy' Rozga and Dasha Kelley Hamilton, the 2019-20 and 21 Wisconsin Poet Laureates.
The prompt I selected was 'My Children's world...' now modifed, but the poetry following such remains.
Artwork: ‘River of Time’ by Jean D. Sobon.
My Child's Earth
My child's Earth
is free.
It's free of Third Street fires,
like today's world, that engulf me.
It’s free of screaming whiteheads
telling other colors they should be dead.
It’s free of knees on necks and free
of oil spilled shipwrecks.
It’s free of the one percent
who has the rest living a wreck.
But, it also breathes sighs of change that
rearrange stagnant ashes which
once remained in place.
It informs those of the old that what
they were told was weak
enough to fracture, like ice in the cold.
it sheds the mug of a society
that once had a complacent face
And opens a cornucopia of individuality
that shines a light of united euphoria.
it closes a door that in due time
would have been burned down
by the optimistic mind,
And embraces those subject to a fate that
was once one of discriminatory hate.
It creates a connection,
a joining of hands that
for many decades was in demand
And It reminds us all that
the reality of tomorrow was
the dream of today.
My Child's Earth is free.
It's free of people who I thought
were just like me.
Kristian Zenz