I don't know how many of you remember the Busing "Wars" in Boston in the Early 1970's but this is when we saw our beautiful city and community fall apart in the sadest way, taking America Backwards again . . .so close to the sorrowful stupidity once again knocking down our door of progress.
Racemares in the Neighborhood
Dreams, asleep/awake last night
prompted by reading truth of those in India
I began to be attacked my memory bank
with the bullet flying through our window
as my beloved and I sat reading
in our living room, or maybe drawing
compulsive artists that we were/are
Our attic apartment was cozy
an orange kitchen in the back
our landlords kind as can be
their daughter a music student
who taught me Brahms melodies
her gorgeous alto, my baritone harmony
the problem was that they were negro
and we were white and the freedom curtain
had been triggered torn cruelly apart
we were asked to move for safety of us all
he was a city employee, driving a city bus
our neighborhood, a fine mixture of race
the scrumptious bakery run by dark sisters
the convenience/grocery store Hispanic
filled with exotic treats and kind folks
across from the Catholic Church
an Ark of good Lord Loving Humanity
on the corner a neighborhood Irish bar
across from the Chinese Restaurant
Each home was filled with ethnicity
of every color and religion
one couple I loved dearly in their 80’s
had lived since early marriage
and even Jews were there too
all of us so fine, an elementary school
serving kids of every color and kind
oh, yes it was so American
the Elevated Tramway above the street
center street, continuing until entered
underground beneath Boston subway deep
But then the madness began
group of vengeful blacks ready to kill
attacked a wild group of hippie guy and gals
who’d built a commune upon Mission Hill
and advanced to our little enclave
to scare us all away, deserting bear cages
that in Franklin Park, right down the street
covered in ivy and in decaying stages
So sad to see that dream we all had
of living together as one whole people
not just a flock of color or religion
but high and bright like a steeple
Praising what some of us saw as truth
the holy god who indeed loved one another
and yes, like my friend and I singing
songs together, a sister and a brother
This is written with thoughts of relatives
who think that to Make our Land again
is to make it Donald Duck white
those who look like us can we befriend
🌎
Shame to make a democracy a land once
made for all to be kind, peaceful and free
should become a despotic republic land
surrounded by Caribbean, Atlantic, Pacific Seas
©james m. frase-white 4 May 2025
after reading a section of Michael Palin’s novel Truth
and take-out food that disturbed my body too!
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