Home | Workshops & Consulting | Poster Store | "Must Read" Bookshelf | Social Justice Store | Tell a Friend | Email Us
Backsliding
by Linda L. Bielowski

"I am a psychotherapist and former university English instructor, who is currently doing postgraduate work at Harvard Medical School. I have published a book of poetry-CONTEMPLATIVE PERSONA and a chapbook-SPIRIT ECHOES."

Out of
the void, a voice
of baritone thunder
broke. And ball lightning split airwaves
wide. An incandescent
flash: Son Seals
was dead.
Feral
picking fingers
frozen at sixty-two.
shut up, shut in a nursing home.
Gravelly rough, raw riffs
halted at the
crossroads.

Seismic
shock shook her faith,
shifted her footing, quick
silver. She felt herself backslide
and spin the radio
dial to blues
ditties.
Hungry
for verboten
devil’s dens, roadhouses,
and juke joints, she tuned out gospel
greats and tent revivals
to raise some hell
fire.

Gazing
backward over
her left shoulder, she saw
old masks and markers scattered like
salt in abysmal wounds.
Generational
symbols.

Facing
forward to wipe
her scars, to wrap her head,
she rhapsodized guitar legends
and lost youth. Love beads gone,
the bare moment
embraced.

[ Back to Voices! Index ]

EdChange Consulting and Workshops on Multicultural Education, Diversity, Equity, Social Justice
Feminist Tees
Teaching for Change Social Justice Bookstore
SoJust.net
EdChange Social Justice Store
Multicultural Poster Store
Home | Defining Multicultural Education | Teacher's Corner | Free Hand-outs | Awareness Quizzes | EdChange Research Room | Social Justice News Service | Teacher Action Research | Curriculum Reform | Social Justice Speeches Project | Multicultural Song Index | Awareness Activities | Voices! Poetry E-Journal | Quips and Quotations | Digital Divide and EdTech | Join the Listserv | Film Reviews | Other Sites | About Me | Email Us


NAME IAIE a Legacy of Grace

Founded and still maintained by Paul C. Gorski, PhD
© EdChange.org and Paul C. Gorski, 1995-2008