Looking back at life.
In one family. At the same time.
A mother is letting a few decades go by,
quite a few actually and she is wondering what happened.
At the same time, in a bootcamp.
Not far from the prestigious University of Michigan.
Rules are being enforced, are to be taught.
So that not too far down the road,
the daughter can go back, can join her little
baby - born not into the camp, but some time
before.
Looking back, asking what happened, what
made her life* go bad. What could have (*at this time)
prevented it, what could have changed the course.
And a mother asks, why this one and not the others,
a word here and there, a nice gesture or talk,
instead of an angry or some other tough action,
or a smile and some money that could have been of help
was it the neighborhood, or was it men who
happened to sweettalk their way into her life...
Into the life of some women. And then had to leave.
Without a job that provided respect. After a few
drinks or a few puffs or even more.
Abandoned houses, crack houses, nice houses.
A few survive. A few get rented, until money
runs out. There are streets in the city that experience
renewal, the spotlight is on; but there are many
where kids run down to the liquor store buying
some candy, some sugar or even more.
Where in the morning they make it to school -
a grandmother or aunt, or at times the father
might take them by car. Might. Where a school is looking
for money and the state or the city supply some dough.
In how many schools do kids have to
struggle, have to spend the year at the house
-2-
of an aunt, or maybe of an uncle. They sit in
school, play in the yard and make it
through the day.
-----How much time do teachers have ..... to ask
for their stories, their fun or their pain.
Since there is no way out, or so it seems,
nobody is asking the children or teachers, or their parents
nobody is doing research to help them grow
old, to survive the streets of many a neighborhood.
Yet in all the struggle, all of them find,
a way to enjoy a good moment, to hang on to a
straw, or a rock and a piece of bread.
Given all the billions that have been spent
on a war, with a dedication and stubbornness,
like no one before -
the budgets get slashed, the poor are forgotten,
there is no voice on Fox or CNN
that would advocate to use billions
to make happy the poor;
to turn inner cities and certain countrysides
into
fields of hope and of Spring.
So that in 10 years
a daughter can look back
at bootcamp and
see a university and children
of a society
that really did its job.
.
