Why must we drive ourselves so hard through this earth, while the other men have the machines?
On a summer day I hear men in a field talking about how;
“Dey pa who had died a slave back then, he could drive a pick into the earth like none other, banishing rocks to outah space with a swing”
We would talk about our fathers as if they were present
"Well my dad can lift a truck with his pinky finger!"
Mental mastication trying to truly taste what fairness is as I'm driving on backroads of S. Carolina to reach my life's most stable love
I flew in,
and the night I rented the car
I was coming and she was going
Arriving to see her
and she was departing a body that had had enough
An engined heart that had turned over small millisecond like numbers of the last mile,
And that was it.
No more than a 6 and a half hours drive
The difference of a warm body.
Minus the life that was in it
multiplied by my guilt...equals how
I drove highways and backroads all through the night
Propelled by sheer shock and insomnia
I drove through bouts of torrential rain
Dark clouds hovered over me
But the weather was fine outside
Can I drive blind from tears and piercing pained confusing grief,
Affirmative.
Through foggy eyes
I see her driving a burgundy Pontiac in sun-bleached and faded-film memory,
those types of memories I can't quite grasp like something stuck between the car seat and that middle dash area...
I can see its form with one-eye focus and two-finger-longed-grip, to touch it,
But that's all
She'd drive me out of the kitchen after I'd get on her nerves
And I can't understand how I was unable to grasp a reality without her.
That reality surely fell between the seat
I don't know if I have the reach
Windshield wiper eyes blink away torrential rain-flooded tears down my face
I don't know if I can drive this way
I don't know if I have the drive to continue without you,
Grandma.
In response maybe she'd tell me about her father
How he drove the town crazy and made those white men burn their home to the ground
They had to escape North after her father killed those two white men that had raped her mother
They knew what drove the injustice system, surely not brown-justice-longings
They would restart in New York,
After driving
all,
through,
the night and day
Yeah,
That's in my blood.
The type of justice that drives you mad
Maybe like John Henry when that hunk of metal and steam sought to displace his life?
And, something didn't sit right in the man!
Some sort of, justice-compass in your gut type feeling!
Some sort of, blue-collar-worker-moan type feeling!
Some sort of, watching our mothers starve to feed us type feeling!
I know drive!
I know drive.
So. much. drive,
Like John Henry
And I wonder what he saw,
I wonder if he knew the drive demanded a life
If we spoke to drive maybe he'd reply in the voice of a taxi driver, father, husband displaced refugee
Broken-Englished,
"I drove you 10 blocks that's the price!"
And bargaining for a better tomorrow of his own
PhD wielding doctor turned driver, driving
For a living,
driving
For a living.
Driving.
As these words sustain me
So I am drive
Milking these words
Hear me linking verbs thinking thoughts that
Sink into the labyrinth of my ink welled cerebral
These are Hebrew scriptures I leave you!
Bartering, bargaining,
Beating my way through some metaphorical mountain to paint these pictures, for your pleasure
I'm tethered to this pen like a
Hammer in hand
I'll be damned if I'm out-worked by a machine!
I am drive
Words-swing
I am drive
Coal-steam
Rock and dust in one
Fill my lungs
Driving through the other side of some opportunity or equity
Words-swing!
Banishing these rocks
Into outer space like non-other,
Words-swing!
A gleam of hope
Light and smoke I choke
Words-swing
So close
Words-swing
I'm through the other side because
I drive, and drive, and drive, and drive
To create the tracks we'll all travel on
THESE WORDS SWING!
From the tips of my fingers as fast as the thought enters my head
I drive, I drive, I drive, I drive ...
words swing,
I die.
I felt that “drive.” Felt like when my grandmother got my cousin to drive us to SC…up in the country…to some church’s anniversary. The drive going was always too long for my small child’s pleasure. The drive home too slow. I never liked those trips. Your drive is strong. Steady. Vivid. 🌿