YOUR VOICE * YOUR VOTE

by Jen Schneider

I.

Our Vote Is Our Voice. Why Can I Not Hear It?

 

Question 1. 

If my ballot is complete yet not received, do I still count? 

 

Question 2. 

Which of the following words is least like the others? Most?

A.    Vision

B.    Victory

C.    Voice

D.    Vacuum

 

Question 3. 

If I speak yet no one hears, does my voice matter?

 

Question 4. 

Which of the following words is least like the others? most?

A.    Count

B.    Calculate

C.    Curate

D.    Collect

 

Question 5

Which color is least like the others? most?

A.    Blue

B.    Red

C.    Purple

D.    Green

 

Question 6

What percentage of inmates in county jail are innocent of all charges?

What percentage of inmates in county jail are allowed to vote?

What percentage ultimately plead guilty, despite innocence?

What percentage ultimately fail to vote, despite eligibility and desire?

 

Question 7

Define fundamental.

Define right. 

 

Question 8

When Election Day bleeds and blends with the days that follow, does the notion of a 24-hour day persist?

 

Question 9

Define day.

Define vote.

Define right.

 

Question 10

If I lose an absentee ballot, am I too absent?

 

Question 11

Which word doesn’t belong?

A.    Left

B.    Right

C.    Wrong

D.    Accurate

 

Question 12

Which word doesn’t belong?

A.    Territory

B.    Prison

C.    Jail

D.    Shelter

E.    Cell

 

Question 13

How do the following terms differ in meaning?

A.    Suppress

B.    Oppress

C.    Repress

D.    Regress

 

Question 14

If I look like a different person on each of my 3 forms of ID, who am I?

 

Question 15

What word would you add to this list? Why?

A.    Patient

B.    Patience

C.    Poll

D.    Pure

E.    Pacify

 

Question 16

Define Hope. 

Define Crossroads.

How are the two concepts similar?

How are the two concepts different?

 

II.

Where Crossroads Meets Paths Forward

A Crossroads

1.     The color of fear

2.     A bitter flavor, seasoning, and word. Three words. 

3.     A sound that comes from the sky

4.     A sound that comes from the ground

5.     The word for when fear, anger, disbelief, and disillusionment meet 

6.     The word for where fear, anger, disbelief, and disillusionment meet

7.     A favorite hobby

8.     Adjectives that describe your worst qualities - three

 

A Path Forward

1.     The color of a favorite garment

2.     Lyrics from a beloved song. Three words.

3.     Another word for cry

4.     A sound that describes sadness

5.     The word for when hope, empathy, and understanding, and compassion meet

6.     The word for where hope, empathy, and understanding, and compassion meet

7.     A bemoaned chore

8.     Adjectives that describe your best qualities - three

 

Hope

Hope is the color of _1__, the flavor of _2__, and the sound of ___3___ 

and __4__. Hope is ___5__, __6__, and __7__. 

Hope is ___8___.  Hope is everywhere. Choose Hope.

Jen Schneider is an educator, attorney, and writer. She lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Philadelphia. Her work appears in The Popular Culture Studies Journal, unstamatic, Zingara Poetry Review, Streetlight Magazine, Chaleur Magazine, LSE Review of Books, and other literary and scholarly journals.

PICKING UP A HITCHHIKER IN MAY

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

"The burial of the dead is Humanity 101."
—Thomas Lynch, undertaker and poet, NPR, May 6, 2013

It’s messy when they die
in winter, he says. The dirt
is too cold to work with then.
I tell him I will consider this
when I die. Just give me two-weeks’
notice, he says, quoting a joke,
and it occurs to me humor
must be an unwritten
prerequisite for a grave digger.
I ask him what he thinks
about the recent uproar in Boston,
no one wanting the bomber
buried in their own backyard.
Well, he says, I’ve always thought
we should have a special section
for the politicians. We could put
him here with them—in a place where
we let the dogs run.
In the space before I laugh,
I remember the story
the undertaker told about how
in the middle ages they considered
suicide the ultimate crime.
But since you can’t punish a dead man,
they took out their ire on his corpse
and buried it at a crossroads
to be trod on forever. He said,
“If we do not take care of dead humans,
we become less human ourselves.”
The man next to me says,
“You know, I give every person I bury
the gravedigger’s promise.”
We are almost to the cemetery gate.
“I say, I’m the last person who’s ever gonna
let you down, and the last one
who’ll ever throw dirt on you.”
He laughs a laugh so real
I can smell the earth thawing in it.


Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poetry has appeared in O Magazine, in back alleys, on A Prairie Home Companion and in her children’s lunch boxes. She is a parent educator for Parents as Teachers. Favorite one-word mantra: Adjust.