Just a man, his dog, and a raft.
A++
Laying infirm in my bed with a no-count hound I imagine this.
Integrating St. Augustine’s “white only” beaches.
“I remember the wade-ins because the bump hasn’t gone off my jaw yet. They started yelling obscenities at us, but we went on — myself and a group of teen-age girls. We were afraid but we felt we just had to go on.“ — Dorothy Cotton, SCLC.
I live here
I’ve fished here, surfed, broke bread
here
where there are ghosts everywhere
and not just of civil rights warriors
but of conquistadors and slaves
heart broken Natives and gleeful mass murderers
all trying to tell you their history
because civic leaders have tried to hide it
while hawking trinkets, maps and train rides
and so we continue on in this so-called paradise
blind, deaf, dumb
watching not so historical reenactments
tossing coins into fountains
and dining where bloodshed and tears have stained the earth
waiting for the hand of God
to wash it all away
