Ferguson: A cycle

Ferguson 1: The wedding

The wedding: I hear

voices , not bells

voices rising in song

joined in song

joined in rejoicing

Outside: war, armies

clashing, wearing

armor, not linen,

linen saved

for afterward

The wedding: ends,

we walk outside

into the destruction

of the darkness. We step

over the slain.

Ferguson 2: The wedding

We step over the slain

as we walk the streets

of iron rusting in moonlight

We hear the music

the music of voices, raised

the music of voices, raged

the shattering of bottles, alight

rubber ping of bullets in flight

the music of shattering glass

scant protection against the burning

the music of alarms splitting

the night

shuffling feet, running past

the slain

The bride and groom gone

the wedding party gone

Ferguson 3: The fusion of narratives

One: walking in the middle of the street

Two: racist police

Three: blood in the middle of the street

Four: police protecting

Five: convenience store robbed

Six: the media, just the media

Seven: Molotov cocktail in memory of the slain

Eight: tear gas

Nine: the out-of-towners

Ten: the pastors speak

Eleven: the media, just the media becomes

             its own narrative

             as always

Ferguson 4: He walks the streets

He walks the streets

of concrete and stone

singing in his words,

the words only he can speak,

understood by all

who can’t speak the words.

He carries a staff of gold

taps it on the street

keeps time to the song.

Wherever he taps on the street

becomes gold on the street

golden street

He looks for the temple

the temple in the city,

to stand in its courts

to hear the cacophony

of its halls and rooms

He looks to see the priests

and servants walking

ban and forth talking

back and forth  watching

the temple’s business.

He looks for the sellers

of sacrificial offerings,

baaing, lowing, chirping

in fear and anticipation.

He finds no temple

only silence in the streets

only silence in the lanes

only silence in the grand boulevards

and avenues

only empty courts

of the temple that isn’t there

He walks down the streets

to see boarded windows

empty sidewalks

burned remnants

signs and bottles left

for trash collectors

to gather

he hears no birds

a rat scurries in the gutter.

The white dove comes

hovers above the madness

He smiles as a white dove

settles in a tree by the street

Ferguson 5: Hope shimmers

Hope shimmers on the horizon

or perhaps hope is the horizon

there, visible a song flying

across the plain stretching

toward hope, the plain that

is not the desert but a promise

a promised land

hope is there

in the promised land

always there