Walking with @GerDuany - A Recollection Poem on Day 20 of #VerseLove (READ WALK TOWARD THE RISING SUN)

Yesterday, my friend Leilya Pitre offered a prompt on #VerseLove to take a poem on a walk...take your readers with you. It's been a couple of years since Penguin Random House offered Abu Bility and me the privilege of creating an Educator's Guide for Ger Duany's Walk Toward the Rising Sun, and I was also fortunate to have the author/writer/actor/activist stop by Stratford while crossing the country. I cannot hear the word 'walking' without thinking of Ger Duany and the influence his book had on me as a thinker/human/ writer. When Leilya offered the prompt, I immediately went to my bookshelf and pulled down my copy. I wanted some of his words as I did my walk around the Long Island Sound in southern Connecticut. 

That was October, 2020, and I still had Covid-head (hence the mini-man bun). Anyway...here's a throwback to the visit, the book, and a poem that was born out of both.

Walking with Ger

     ~b.r.crandall

As Chris says,

Violence is a strange monster.

and today, the paper

reports that cameras 

caused the confession.

But it’s never enough,

so I imagine you and Emmanuel 

sipping bourbon

while singing

The scars are what get us this far.

I have only relocated by choice,

privileges,

and remain sheltered 

by books, emboldened

by libraries.

Still, I watch Ukraine 

as if it’s a Marvel movie,

waiting for 

the better ending.

Empathy should be a superpower.

(I have to believe that, 

even if I’ve never had to burn cow dung

to repel flies and mosquitos). 

So walking with you today,

separate memories, 

varying histories, 

storytelling

from rising suns…

and seeing them set —

I find myself in 

the adolescent loop

to find solace 

within the game.

It makes me wonder

what the Paugussett Nation

called the Long Island Sound.

These blue skies offer optimism.

The Breeze is more pessimistic. 

And you tell me

the Nuer sing when they’re happy,

mourn when they’re sad,

and fight when they’re angry.

They leave nothing inside.

But I’m outside now.

trying to remake myself 

a 1,000 times over,

and still carving 

the world

for

more meaning.

I see 

a sandpiper

running along

the shoreline.

Perhaps that’s 

what I really

need.