Bearden’s “Realm of Shades”, and: Aerial View: Jackson State College

BEARDEN’S “REALM OF SHADES”

To hold on to the memories of home,the haunting memories,

the ones that came to him even as a child,before there were memories to forget,

Odysseus would try to forget their omenof violence, poverty, and unemployment

before they took root within him;he set sail for lands unknown,

leaving home in his mind, dreaming,knowing there was more beyond

his country’s border, he struggledto come back to himself

and to others he loved.Once he reached the water,

the water reached back;he struggled over the waves,

realizing, finally these waveshe fought were the waves he created;

they built within him as he struggledto tamp down himself all while finding

the man dreaming at sea, findingin his dream a boy who was himself,

dreaming of this moment at sea.How does one find the courage

to be one’s self, even in a dream?He rode the waves, accepting their fate.

At dawn, the next day, Odysseusroused to find that he wasn’t in Ithaca,

not back home in bed with his Penelope;he was in a land adorned with flames

but a land still green with possibility,bustling with shadows of fallen men,

fallen women & children,a land filled with the knowledge

of the past and of the future.Like most depressed neighborhoods

there was an old man sittingin the center of downtown,

casting knowledge. Odysseus listened; he got it.Odysseus took the tribal mask of the forgotten,

a shield from a man wounded in battle, a spearfrom another who missed his mark, and this old

man’s new knowledge, which made all new,and he walked the streets of shadows

like the big man he dreamed he would be,and there on the horizon like in the dream

of far away lands he had as a boy, was his home.But after ten years away, what was home to him?

Love. One might say it fueled his journey.Who survives any world without someone

with whom to share a bed or a bottle of wine?Who wants to?

Nothing heroic needs to occur to knowyou’re alive; another foot brushes your foot

beneath a sheet in the middle of the night,and one can live for years on this alone.

As long as he was away from this,he was on a journey. A harsh road

wends toward a couple’s bed. He rememberstaking her by the waist, pulling her in close,

he believed he’d always come back to this moment.But he knew the risk and promised (more

to himself than to her) that he would return.He knew his returning—no matter the suitors

in between, no matter the witches or sirenstaking him off course, even the desire to return

when staying away is easier—would say more about his need for her

than if he had never left her at all.

AERIAL VIEW
Jackson State College

On May 15, 1970, The Jackson State killings occurred on the campus of Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) in Jackson, Mississippi. On May 14, 1970, a group of student protesters against the Vietnam War were confronted by city and state police. Shortly after midnight, the police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve. The event happened only eleven days after National Guardsmen killed four students in similar protests at Kent State University in Ohio. The Kent State incident captured national attention; Jackson State killings did not.

A bullet comes through the air. It’s not fairsimply to fear them as projectiles;often they are warnings. That isto say, they sound out through time,running up ahead to let us knowthe terrain before us does not welcomeour kind, almost singing a single noteof advice: run.

I

Above us squinting, crystal lens,above us frowning, sharpening the focus,pain and quirk and need, what else does he call for,

he who wields the secret to death?What else scares...