I don’t know where
you will find much history.
In museums,
in roped-off displays
and a few park-like estates
with docents and maps.
The real time
is only now
and we are living it
without shadow
like a 2-D
group of faces
trying to be upbeat,
trying to be hip
and young and beautiful.
And we are
full of blood now
with a few memories,
but you’ll notice many
pleasant streets
that curl
and rename themselves
with willow oaks
as sentinels
and only the civil war
that race remains
and class extremes
dividing neighborhoods
with an elected fence.
Somehow we were hornets*
at the beginning
and we’re still
swarming
now and in the day
of our becoming.
*British General Cornwallis described Charlotte a “hornet’s nest of rebellion” during the Revolutionary War.
David Radavich’s recent collections are America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011). His plays have been produced across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe. He is currently president of the Charlotte Writers’ Club and poetry editor of Deus Loci.
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