MOTHER
YOU are the First
beginnings Of the first love I've ever known...
kindness, warmth, trust,
All this you have shown...
YOU are
the perfect rainbow
across the sky of every human being,
YOU are the flower view
my soul keep seeing...
Your nourishment gave me the power
to continue on
with strong motion, you are
the raw essence
of truth
and devotion...
your wisdom is the treasure,
your giving has no measure,
much higher and precious than any other...
you are the one
you are my mother.
Bernard Patrick
2/23/99
BEING POOR AIN'T NO STATE OF MIND
When the winds be blowin'
so very hard
and the cold is assaulting
one's bones, when
the very bottom of one's belly
cries out to a world
the just don't hear,
to a world that just don't
really know the
serious push
of the
pains that
hunger their
way
above and beyond
the heart...
When one's only dream
is to be warm and realized...
just to be realized.
When one has allowed
the neat commodities
of pride
to become vaporized
In the fluttering wings of hope...
When one has engaged
in the vast theater
of other people's stare
and disregard.
When one must become an
actor or actress for the small
but wanting
facet
of a meal.
Being poor is the tragic song
that has no
particular music, it's
a song and a journey
that has no apparent end...
...It is the cracked reflection
in a cultural mirror
that often breaks
into little
jagged
elements called terrible...
Being Poor
is like the shadow
squeezing in
between two tan
buildings...
Being Poor is deplorable... it is
the profane exterior
of hurt
encrusted
and shackled
along the narrow lines of reality.
Bernard Patrick, 1999
GSP EF307420
100 GA, HWY, 147
Reidsville, GA
30499