Hercules and the Wagoner

Reflections, South Carolina, June 17-22, 2015

I. 17 June 2015

The heat tonight doesn’t break.
The great revolt was to begin,
at midnight, starting at the church,
so they burned it to the ground.
Tonight, the heat doesn’t break.
We drag the hose across the yard,
water the garden, the sun-beat beds.
My mother, my brother, at midweek prayer.
(My father dies again this week.)
We all pray in different ways.
The hedgerow is filled with fireflies,
signaling something, love or loss,
a ripple of light across the lawn,
something or someone gone.

*

We water the garden in the fading light,
bring in the first tomatoes, yellow, a handful
of blackberries, tart, indigenous, handful of sweetness.
Tomorrow morning, we will hear the news,
the latest harvest, history’s bitter fruit.

II. After, when we’re told we’ll never understand

The heat doesn’t break.

Someone says a drug-related incident,
someone says he was quiet, he mostly kept to himself,
someone says mental illness,
someone says a hateful and deranged mind,
someone says he was a loner, he wasn’t bullied,
someone says his sister was getting married in four days,
a newsman says an attack on faith,
a relative says his mother never raised him to be like this,
a friend says he had that kind of Southern pride, strong conservative beliefs,
someone says he made a lot of racist jokes, but you don’t really take them seriously like that you don’t really think of it like that,
someone says he wanted to start a civil war,
he said he was there to kill black people,
the governor says we’ll never understand.

*

He is not a lone wolf,
he is not alien,
he is not inexplicable,
he is not just one sick individual,
he is one of us,
he is from here he grew up here,
he went to school here,
he wore his jacket with its white supremacist patches here,
he told racist jokes here,
he got his gun here,
he learned his racism here,
his license plate sported a confederate flag here,
the confederate flag flies at the state capitol here,
he had that kind of Southern pride,
this is not isolated,
this is not a drug incident,
this is not unspeakable (we should speak),
this is not unthinkable (we should think),
this is not inexplicable (we must explain it),
he is not a symbol he is a symptom,
he is not a cipher he is a reminder,
his actions are beyond our imagining,
but his motivation is not beyond our understanding, no
he didn’t get those ideas from nowhere.

mental illness is a way to not say racism
drug-related is a way to not say hate
loner is a way to not say one of us
we’ll never understand is a way to not say look at our history

Look away, look away, look away…. [to be sung]

*

Between prayers at the service
at the AME church
the day after,
a senator spoke to packed pews
about the appalling silence of good people.

Outside they sang this little light of mine.

III. Prayer

Prayers are rising for Mother Emanuel today.
I call my mother, I call my brother.
They are laying flowers at Emanuel today.
The weatherman promises rain tonight.

I call my mother, my brother.
What will we harvest this weekend?
The weatherman promises rain tonight.
We tug the hose to each bed just in case.

What will we harvest this summer?
They are gathering at the Statehouse today.
We tug the hose to each bed just in case
the rain doesn’t come, the heat doesn’t break.

They are gathering at the Statehouse today.
He didn’t get those ideas from nowhere.
The rain doesn’t come, the heat doesn’t break.
A hot wind whips the flag.

He got those ideas from somewhere.
It takes a story to replace a story.
A hot wind whips the flag.
Outside the church they sang this little light of mine.

It takes a story to replace a story.
Put your shoulder to the wheel.
They were singing this little light of mine.
The fireflies glimmer in the grey light.

Put your shoulder to the wheel.
But if you want to drive away sorrow….
The fireflies light the blue night.
Emanuel means God is with us.

Come and hear this song tomorrow.
They are laying flowers at Emanuel today.
Emanuel means God is with us.
Prayers are rising for Mother Emanuel today.

IV. Denmark Vesey’s Favorite Fable

While playing Uno and Skip-Bo at the hotel,
Bert’s family visiting for the weekend,

we try to talk about the rally we’re missing.
A niece says, it’s just a symbol. We stumble

again into difficult conversations.
How do we make visible the privilege we breathe

like air? The cards fall by color and number.
Tiny, tired, my nephew leans against me.

*

Thunder shudders against the office windows
downtown, a block or so from the statehouse
dome, the rain finally falling, the heat
finally breaking, right at this moment
when—as if this were a movie—the governor
says we should take the flag down.

*

Denmark Vesey’s favorite fable was the tale
of Hercules and the Wagoner. A farmer’s cart
slid into a ditch, got stuck in the mud,
a wheel sunk to its hub in a rut.
The farmer cursed his luck, said a prayer
to the hero Hercules, sure he’d lift it out.
Not so fast, a voice from heaven said.
Put your own shoulder to the wheel first.