THE MOURNING AFTER

by Nan Ottenritter

Detail of Kehinde Wiley's "Rumors of War"

Drive downtown, in the circles can be found
Stonewall Jackson, Arthur Ashe in Monument town.
Two hooves in the air mean the rider died in battle,
Others want their freedom, don’t make me no chattle.
The history society debunks the horse limbs lore
But slavery, Lost Causes leave generations sore
and hurting from a war and the endless chore
of teaching you, the victor, writing the stor-
ies, the history, the truth of our nation.

On the block in Shockoe Bottom, bound in chains
Or, cause cotton weren’t the only crop, sold down the James.
We scrawl on Jeff Davis Black Lives Matter.
At Robert E. Lee’s feet red paint is splattered.
Say his name. Lynch Trump. This is racist.
Your vote was a hate crime. The south ain’t no oasis.

Yet near Monument Avenue a black man rides,
Nike high tops astride a horse with one foot high.
Pony-tailed dreadlocks, rips in his jeans,
Wounded in the battle of his own life it seems.
Yet regard his hoodied shoulders, straight and proud.
Regard his youth, his gaze, his head unbowed.
Wiley brought him here to Arthur Ashe Boulevard.
The statue sits right here, in Richmond unmarred
the painful mourning after in our own backyard.

Nan Ottenritter lives in Richmond, VA and has driven by the confederate statues for years. Yet in February, 2019 the city council voted to change the name of the Boulevard to Arthur Ashe Boulevard. In December, 2019 Kehinde Wiley’s statue Rumors of War was installed in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It stands in stark comparison to the statues on Monument Avenue. With both of these actions the author began to feel a little proud of what was once the capitol of the Confederacy.

RUMORS OF WAR

by Marsha Owens

Gun rights advocates and militia members gather in Virginia's capitol to protest potential gun control bills. Credit: JACK GRUBER, USA TODAY, January 21, 2020.

The inspiration for Rumors of War is war—
is an engagement with violence.

—Kehinde Wiley

marched around my town like Grant went through Richmond my daddy would’ve said if he were still alive, and he would’ve harrumphed at the overkill in the news again, then he would’ve lit another cigarette and gone to bed, and everybody else in town would do the same time because it was ten o’clock and it wasn’t 2020 yet, like yesterday, Martin Luther King day, when a band of 22,000 strangers from God knows where gathered at the Virginia State Capitol, once the proud capital of the confederacy (big C) all tightly strapped and wrapped in artillery and more goddam ammunition than I ever care to see, and I was a prisoner in my own house, waiting all day for the sound of gunshots in my own yard. Do not go near the Capitol! we were warned. Some people called in sick, some gathered with friends, some went to churches to pray, some, like me, tried not-so-successfully to stay calm, to not get anxious or drunk, to not curl into the fetal position, and today we’re told it was a fine protest, no shots fired, no injuries, no deaths.

But I am traumatized, so do not try to tell me that what happened last week in my city was non-violent and peaceful. Terror wore heavy boots, stomped loudly, and we were sore afraid.

As the day waned into a purple sky, I looked again at the statue—not Grant’s, but of a young black man atop a magnificent steed, just recently come to Richmond to remind us of our dark past, its terror glorified in our streets and I remember how art can sometimes teach us by drawing our eyes to the light, even when danger lingers in shadow.

The “Rumors of War” statue by artist Kehinde Wiley was unveiled in Richmond on [December 9, 2019]. The sculpture depicts an African American man with a crown of dreadlocks, wearing urban clothes and sneakers and sitting astride a horse (Steve Helber/AP via The Washington Post, December 11, 2019.

Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond, VA. Her writing has appeared in both print publications, including The Huffington Post, Wild Word Anthology, The Sun, and online at TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Rat’s Ass Review, and Rise Up Review. She is a co-editor of the recently published poetry anthology Lingering in the Margins and a proud recipient of the Leslie Shiel Scholarship Award for Writers Who Read, awarded through the Visual Arts Center in Richmond.

WHEN I SAW JESUS IN RICHMOND, VA

by Marsha Owens

Volunteers Mary Akemon (left) and Alexandra Marcus and, with Let America Vote, talked with Farrukh Kahn as they canvassed a neighborhood on Friday, October 27, 2017 in Woodbridge, Virginia. Let America Vote, formed by former Democratic Missouri Senate candidate Jason Kander debuted its electoral field operations in Virginia with a field office in Manassas that drew 114 interns from across the country to help knock on doors for 10 Democratic delegate candidates. (Pete Marovich/For The Washington Post)

Lo, in the year two thousand and seventeen,
I walked among Democrats and knocked
and the young woman, wearing a friendly
smile, opened the door to me and said,
yes, we will vote tomorrow
for the one who is good to all people,
to my black family and to my Muslim
neighbors, the one who does not hurt
women, does not steal from the poor,
and I said, that is good, and my gaze
fell on the old woman on the couch,
her hand patting the tiny baby,
and she asked me to name names
of the others who care about others
and I showed her the list, and she
rejoiced and was grateful
and I saw, too, the man seated on a stool,
the old woman’s foot on his knee,
and I watched this young man wash
the feet of his mother-in-law who was lame,
saw him file her splintered toenails,
and my eyes did not deceive,
and his child—an old soul—waved her
baby hands, and his young wife spoke
again—do you see what my husband is doing?
and I saw, then turned away, walked through
golden leaves and the sun reached down, and I
heard nearby loud voices praising Sunday
football and seemed to hear heavenly voices
sing blessings for this holy shit, and within
the loudness, a small voice, maybe my own,
whispered, This is good stuff, damn good stuff.

Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond, VA and celebrates her roots in the Chesapeake Bay area. She is pleased to say that she survived 18 years of teaching English to middle schoolers. Her poems and essays have been published at The Wild Word, Feminine Collective, Rat’s Ass Review, TheNewVerse.News,The Literary Nest, and the Dead Mule School of Literature.