In the Summer of 2020

Turning Under (the Summer of 2020)

On the near edge of summer

things are dying.

The plague has been like a

great harvester

mowing and sifting humanity’s

stalks and branches

leaving sorrow, memory, and

accommodation

strewn about

for the combine to gather

as dry statistics.

Some deaths come

When people can’t breathe.

There comes a time of burning

to level those suffocating structures.

Things die in summer,

even when death goes unnoticed

amid the flourishing of green.

An age-old song

rises from the rubble

when there is hope for the lowly

to be lifted up

as the mighty are brought down.

A song sung by the women who

witness the end

and see the beginning.

A song of Hannah,

a song of Mary,

and a song

of Billie Holiday

because all celebration

is born of sorrow.

With promise laid waste

and cities in disarray

we quietly paint the streets

with words of hope.

                      ~ Charles Kinnaird

New York City chose a stretch of Fifth Avenue in front of Trump Tower as the location for a Black Lives Matter mural.
 (Mark Lennihan/AP Photo)

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