Notes above the Stream, A Part of the Stream

Notes above the Stream, A Part of the Stream

In Water Tower Place there is a waterfall
that flows down the center of a stairwell,
a little stream of consciousness.
Every now and then a bubble of water
lifts up, hangs in the air, and bursts.
Its individual beauty, rounded like a note,
stunning, then falls
back
into the flow.

Rosa/ rose so.
Her education in her hands with light inside them.
She sat and sewed a straight seam,
a road to follow as we flowed a thousandfold
while empty busses rumbled emptily on wicked wheels.

Fannie/ ascended.
Stopped time, trembled, her testifying sweat
under the hot lights of a television sun.
"I'm sick and tired
of being sick
and tired." Hands working the land like light, water.
She fell back into the flow. Splashed
and kept on going.
Rosa/ rose
"I'd like to be remembered
as a person who wanted to be free
and a person who wanted
other people to be free."
Free/ a little stream of consciousness
flowing out of Memory into History.
Each one/ rising.

Notice the notes of water
as they spring up, resilient, leap up a cry for Justice,
fall back into the stream of this commercial place,
a clear consciousness
continuous, vivid, splendid.

Each one of us/ rising
on a moment's note.
Shining, hanging round in air,
trembling and falling back
into
a fluid descent of striving, and decent dissent.