Joan Murray

We old dudes. We White shoes. We Golf ball. We Eat mall. We Soak teeth. We Palm Beach; We Vote red. We Soon dead.

1.  Is all at least partially as you might wish? 2. Was the flat even slightly in shape to be sent off? And O what gravity sits upon me here Indeed I am a fellow with something of the world upon my
 shoulders. I turn and say to you “Now I work. I earn to learn!” Masters of thought Gutkind The Arts Ozenfant Anthropology and Culture Stern World Literature Lenrow Conflicting World Capitals Kohn I am in a library for this week and then tickets to be taken. And so I might tell you more of this Like a crow with wings that will not come down A cock o’ the walk fluffing a pretty feather. There is a thing I can’t shake from my mind though. That Limbo you must have automatically slipped me to. I remember mentioning the fact of  it to a child In my convent days She neatly placed me with a slight half shiver In that gray-green unborn world I could taste the color — finger the dullfelt mute of a place. You said, “And indeed that explains it!” I, perhaps, see strings of nuns Like black pearls drawn slowly t’ards the step And well there may be a star at the top And there are the doleful moods of my mock-goblin godliness.

Near Ekuvukeni, in Natal, South Africa, a woman carries water on her head. After a year of drought, when one child in three is at risk of death, she returns from a distant well, carrying water on her head. The pumpkins are gone, the tomatoes withered, yet the woman carries water on her head. The cattle kraals are empty, the goats gaunt— no milk now for children, but she is carrying water on her head. The engineers have reversed the river: those with power can keep their power, but one woman is carrying water on her head. In the homelands, where the dusty crowds watch the empty roads for water trucks, one woman trusts herself with treasure, and carries water on her head. The sun does not dissuade her, not the dried earth that blows against her, as she carries the water on her head. In a huge and dirty pail, with an idle handle, resting on a narrow can, this woman is carrying water on her head. This woman, who girds her neck with safety pins, this one who carries water on her head, trusts her own head to bring to her people what they need now between life and death: She is carrying them water on her head.