Sunday, December 26, 2021

INSPIRATION AND EDUCATION
:: FOUND IN & OF BELL HOOKS

An Erasure Poem by Jen Schneider

Derived from "Appalachian Elegy" (Sections 1-6) by bell hooks (1952-2021)


Activist & writer bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins) by SMiLE on the wall at Falafel King Restaurant, Boulder, CO (2017).


Appalachian Elegy (Sections 1-6)


1.

 

hear them cry

the long dead                                 

the long gone

speak to us

from beyond the grave

guide us

that we may learn

all the ways

to hold tender this land

hard clay direct

rock upon rock

charred earth

in time

strong green growth

will rise here

trees back to life

native flowers

pushing the fragrance of hope

the promise of resurrection

 

2.

 

such then is beauty

surrendered

against all hope

you are here again

turning slowly

nature as chameleon

all life change

and changing again

awakening hearts

steady moving from

unnamed loss

into fierce deep grief

that can bear all burdens

even the long passage

into a shadowy dark

where no light enters

3.

 

night moves

through the thick dark

a heavy silence outside

near the front window

a black bear

stamps down plants

pushing back brush

fleeing manmade

confinement

roaming unfettered

confident

any place can become home

strutting down

a steep hill

as though freedom

is all

in the now

no past

no present

 

4.

 

earth works

thick brown mud

clinging pulling

a body down

heard wounded earth cry

bequeath to me

the hoe the hope

ancestral rights

to turn the ground over

to shovel and sift

until history

rewritten resurrected

returns to its rightful owners

a past to claim

yet another stone lifted to

throw against the enemy

making way for new endings

random seeds

spreading over the hillside

wild roses

come by fierce wind and hard rain

unleashed furies

here in this touched wood

a dirge a lamentation

for earth to live again

earth that is all at once a grave

a resting place a bed of new beginnings

avalanche of splendor

 

5.

 

small horses ride me

carry my dreams

of prairies and frontiers

where once

the first people roamed

claimed union with the earth

no right to own or possess

no sense of territory

all boundaries

placed by unseen ones

here I will give you thunder

shatter your hearts with rain

let snow soothe you

make your healing water

clear sweet

a sacred spring

where the thirsty

may drink

animals all

 

6.

 

listen little sister

angels make their hope here

in these hills

follow me

I will guide you

careful now

no trespass

I will guide you

word for word

mouth for mouth

all the holy ones

embracing us

all our kin

making home here

renegade marooned

lawless fugitives

grace these mountains

we have earth to bind us

the covenant

between us

can never be broken

vows to live and let live

 


Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. She is a Best of the Net nominee, with stories, poems, and essays published in a wide variety of literary and scholarly journals. She is the author of A Collection of Recollections (Next Chapter), Invisible Ink, On Daily Puzzles: (Un)locking Invisibility and On Crossroads and Fill in the Blank Puzzles (forthcoming, Moonstone Press), and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups (forthcoming, Atmosphere Press).