"Que Sera Sera"? -- How do urban mothers cope with fear?

If you've heard Sly and the Family Stone's version of that Doris Day classic "Que Sera Sera," then you'll recognize that Corinne Bailey Rae is doing Sly's arrangement in the video above. I found her rendition particularly moving (as I do the Family Stone's rendition), but I feel that Rae's soulfulness, her bluesy clutching of her guitar later in the song, may have resulted, sadly, from the young singer suffering loss.

This is a 2010 performance. Her husband, Jason Rae, died in 2008 of a suspected drug overdose.

Considering that this blog is the Urban Mother's Book of Prayers, a reader may ask, "How does Corinne Bailey Rae singing "Que Sera Sera" relate to crime or attempts at spiritual evolution in New Orleans? Surely the blogger can't be saying "Que sera sera: whatever will be will be" about chaos and tragedy. That would be throwing up one's hands and giving up, right? If we say that, how shall we stand?

How can we stand in the face of tragedy or how do we stand day to day is indeed the question.

I have to give some context for approaches to the song "Que Sera Sera." I grew up as a black girl in New Orleans hearing that song at the beginning of The Doris Day Show during the late 1960s, and she seemed to sing it on almost every variety show at some point. Here are the lyrics by Ray Evans.

Que Sera Sera
When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be?
Will I be pretty, will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me.

Que Sera, Sera:
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours, to see.
Que Sera, Sera.
What will be, will be.

When I was young, I fell in love;
I asked my sweetheart, What lies ahead?
Will we have rainbows day after day?
Here's what my sweetheart said.

Que Sera, Sera:
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see
Que Sera, Sera.
What will be, will be.

Now I have children of my own.
They ask their mother, What will I be?
Will I be handsome, will I be rich?
I tell them tenderly.

Que Sera, Sera:
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see.
Que Sera, Sera.
What will be, will be.

I knew the words when it was a Doris Day hit, and in my mind her version will always be lively and lovely sort of playful like Ella Fitzgerald's "A-Tisket, A-Tasket." But I remember when, as a grown woman, I listened to Sly and the Family Stone's version again after not hearing it for many years. In my 40s and in the midst of a dying marriage, I recall thinking to myself that Sly's version was a black mother talking, a mother considering the pain to come that an innocent child would never expect. A black person or any other person who's known pain and loss will probably not sing a Doris Day version of this song.

In the original lyrics we hear a woman telling of her questions as first a child, then as a young woman entering marriage, and later as a mother herself answering her own child. The child and the young woman see only joy ahead. "Will I be pretty, will I be rich?" and "Will we have rainbows day after day?" The adult answering does not burst the bubble of naïveté. She merely answers,  "Whatever will be will be." (In Corrine's version the question is, Will I be lonesome day after day?) In the Doris Day version, the woman singing the song sounds as though her life must have been pretty happy-go-lucky. (Either it was joyful or she's been scarfing down a lot of Valium and vodka.) The woman in Sly's version (vocals by his sister Rosie Stone, I think) is much more contemplative and Sly's responding vocal erupts with plaintiveness.

Likewise, in Corinne Bailey Rae's rendition, as one can tell by the expression on her face in the video as well as by her vocals, there seems to be no Doris Day in her mind skipping through the daisies. There's loss. When her bass player (guitarist?) sings the response, there's sorrow. This version, which is also Sly's version, turns "Que Sera Sera" into the call and answer of bluesy prophecy: "the future's not ours to see", so prepare.

To say "que sera sera" to oneself is also a healthy response in some circumstances, such as during the long period of coming to terms with someone's death. In the context of Sly and Croinne's renditions it becomes a pillar of the "Serenity Prayer" -- "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to face the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

When we have the wisdom to recognize what we can't change, we may say "que sera sera" to that and move forward. If we move forward seeking the courage to change what we can change, then we move forward with hope. I've learned that often what we can change most effectively is our own attitude toward whatever we face. What I've been facing most lately, however, is undulating fear.

Recently, I felt the immense weight of New Orleans crime personally when I received a call that a relative had been shot in the neck while walking home. He is an only child, a fine young man of 22. A gang wanted his iPhone or some other gadget that is not worth human breath. It''s possible he will be paralyzed for the rest of his life, but we hope that is not true.

We pray with his parents that he will be whole again, that the doctors will perform something akin to a miracle, but in the meantime, what do we say to his parents? I cannot say, "I know what you're going through" because I do not know and hope I never will. Neither can I reveal my anger because how is my anger useful to them right now?

After I'd processed the news, I can't describe the rage I felt. If someone had asked me what should be done to the young men involved in the shooting, I would have said, "Lock them up. Throw a way the key. No hope for 'em." This kind of thinking goes against my tendency to hope that with the right resources and support almost anyone can change.

Despite hearing of horrific violent crimes daily on the news, there's nothing like hearing someone you know has been shot, and after the anger begins to subside, and you recall that you and your family live in the same city not too far from where the shooting occurred, you become aware of another emotion--fear. How do I deal with the fear that this too-close-for-comfort crime has planted in me, not fear for myself, but fear for my own children and their futures?

Whatever will be will be is the solace the mother in "Que Sera Sera" offers a child obsessing over her future, a saying that helps humans compartmentalize worry. The ability to box off such fear is valuable living in New Orleans or any other violence-stricken region, I suppose, such as Chicago, the Middle East, Mexico, or the Congo. However, I'm not convinced compartmentalizing works with no side effects given what medical science tells us about how the body handles repression and stress.

Compartmentalization may help us cope and move forward in our daily lives, but mishandled stress will manifest somewhere else either in how we interact with others (in irritability and callousness, for instance) or in our own bodies as obesity and other diseases. Knowing that kind of health information itself becomes a nugget for worry. Such fearfulness can lead to depression, to psychological paralysis,  and other psychoses; it must not go unchecked.

By unchecked, I mean unexamined fear. Unexamined fear is the fear that drives us to climb in bed and pull the covers over our heads or to buy a gun and begin shooting at shadows. When instead we examine our fears desiring to find solutions to whatever drives the fear (often some problem that we cannot control alone), then we at least may begin to seek healthy coping mechanisms.

I struggled with this need to find or return to healthy coping mechanism shortly after my young relative was shot because not thinking, my son, who is about the same age as the wounded relative, did something minor that forced me to look at my fear. Without telling me,he left the house the other morning on his bike while I was sleeping and rode to the Wendy's. Yes, we had food in the house, but out of the blue he decided he wanted a fast food breakfast. This scenario was eerily similar to what happened to our young relative whom I had visited in the hospital mere days before my son's Wendy's excursion. Seeing up close a young man in his prime with tubes in his nose and braces or casts from the lips down due to a gunshot wound makes the nightly news intimate.

I found out my son had left the house because I was awakened by my cell phone ringing. I picked it up and saw he was calling, but when I answered, the call was gone. Immediately I called back but he didn't pick up. I got up and when my daughter told me that her brother was out of the house, my heart shuddered in panic.

Fifteen minutes later he was home. He had dialed me accidentally, but I fussed anyway because I had imagined him stopped by a gang with some gangster snatching his phone before I answered, and then I saw him on the ground, bleeding. In an instant, upon waking and missing his call, I had replayed my relative's shooting in my mind and switched out the relative's face with my son's. It was not mother's intuition that engulfed me but terror, and I wanted my son to see and know that terror. I wanted him to see it and be more careful, to learn not to leave the house unnecessarily, to take no risks ever. I wanted him in a cocoon, an impossibility I realized because my son is 21 years old.

Frowning at him, I trudged back to my bedroom and tried exorcising my fear. It cannot be banished though because it is legitimate. That something could happen to either one of my chidlren--car accident, biking collision, gunshot wound to the head--is not a far-fetched irrational thought. Asking them to stop living their lives so I can be fear-free, however, is. Attempting to control others when we feel we have no control is a common reaction to fear, but I have to do better. I know that I must find more constructive ways to deal with possible darker futures over which I have no control.

My method is always to return to writing poetry for a while and to write prose, such as I am doing now. In other words, I use verbal art to process grief, loss, and fear the same way, perhaps, Sly and Corrine use music. Still, sometimes I wish I could move to the woods, way out away from people, away from danger and the potential for loss. After all, self-contemplation is beneficial, right?

And yet, too much isolation is rarely a good thing and never effective insulation from loss. If you are human, you will lose someone at some point. Voluntary isolation is really the self-imposed loss of human connection, the illusion of dodging bullets.

It would be easy for a writer to choose isolation. Writing poetry, essays, and fiction is not a team endeavor for most writers. But given where I've placed myself, home in the city of New Orleans, I cannot chooe such a segregated life. And as much as they fool themselves, neither can those who flee the city for its suburbs. So, I will continue to seek ways to plug myself into the community, finding moments  to help others more. In so doing, it's possible that I will be part of a solution, a conduit for progress and health.

I see that I must embrace the world and life and learn through improving my community (rather than simply complaining about it) how to release the tension of worrying about possible futures over which I have no control. In this way, I practice a control I can manage, self-control, which benefits us all because most of us can control how we relate to others if we choose to do so. The future is not ours to see, but if we can see ourselves changing ourselves to cope better with life now, then perhaps we will find the courage to make a future better than the violent past.

The End Times for Whom for What?

The following poem is not the usual fare posted at The Urban Mother's Book of Prayers, however, it is related in an abstract way to the concerns of this blog. I posted more about where the poem is coming from at my other blog, WSATA, along with the poem's video if you're contemplating its possible meanings. So, there you'll find a little context to help you out if you're the kind who likes to read the background on a poem, and that post includes this thought:

It seems sometimes that some people think that the more you use language to obscure meaning, the better, which begs the question what is it we're trying to obscure?

Another bit of context is that this poem could have been entitled "High/Low Poesy Flow" or "Country Poem/Siddity Poem" or "How Come Ya Don't Tell It Like it Is?" or "Too Much Workshop While the House is Burning Down." :p

End Times
By Nordette N. Adams

This verse is overwritten,
that couplet overwrought.
At insucking intersections,
what should we write? Our world
bombs and our breath's bought
with another's blood.

That line's too sentimental,
that paragraph too fraught
with sloppy appeals
to subcutaneous feel
ings -- cheap pen-shots scribbling
after meanings we have sought
to make sense of the flood

that never recedes.
     It never recedes.

Those quatrains are too obvious,
these sextains too simplistic.
Work and rework words until every
syllable becomes a breadcrumb
for the mystic. Do not be a realisss
stic in the mud because
     we will see.

The good times' rolling's run.

© copyright 2012 Nordette N. Adams

Misery (Video poem)

Violence Stalks the City: 47 Shot in 12 Days

This last week in New Orleans has me rattled, and so crime's returned me to this blog, to poem prayers. We began the year here with a deadly crash on I-10—a 40-vehicle pile-up near the Michoud exit that officials blamed on fog and marsh fires. Compared to the last 12 days in New Orleans, the crash was a blip in consciousness: fog and marsh fires happen; natural forces slam humanity as survivors of Hurricane Katrina well know. However, nature will most likely not slay us before we slay ourselves. If we do not find ways to address the rising crime and violence in this city and other cities, a way to address the misery that drives the madness and the misery that's used to excuse it, we might as well return to our ancient caves.

Last weekend, between Friday night, January 7, and Saturday afternoon, January 8, New Orleans had a rash of unrelated shootings that left three people dead and 10 wounded. The bullets have been flying since January 1. The Times Picayune reports that "at least 47 people have been wounded by gunfire in the first 12 days of the year," causing Mayor Mitch Landrieu to hold a press conference. I'm sure he's concerned about the safety of his constituents, but I'm equally sure that with Mardi Gras approaching and rising crime's threat to tourism, he needed to make all efforts to fight crime more visible.

I won't complain about the mayor's eye on revenue. New Orleans needs the money, but it's the pictures and news clips of mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, and lovers weeping and hollering with grief that do me in. I ended up writing the poem that I've posted below and creating the graphic that I've posted above after seeing this picture on the left of Melisa Marshall, 23, at a vigil, grieving the loss of her fiancee, Joe Elliott, 17, who was the father of their six-month-old son.

Under the headline "Barbed comments 'about nothing' blamed for deaths of father and son," NOLA.com reports that Eliott and his father, Joseph Evans, 41, were shot to death after Eliott's mother, Sabrina, asked her downstairs neighbor to stop calling her teenage daughters "whores."

But Marshall's picture alone did not prompt the poem. Earlier this week I shuddered at video of children running across Gentilly Circle, guided by teachers, during the evacuation of Nelson Elementary School due to four gunmen at large, and I cringed at news of a home invasion in New Orleans East that left three people dead. The story of the mother on Elysian Fields Avenue who heard shots outside and cried, "Please don't let that be my child," but it was her child, her 12-year-old daughter, also stirred me.

"Police said the 12-year-old was sitting on her front porch when three gunmen fired multiple shots, striking two women, a man and Johnson's daughter."

The only way to avoid this kind of news in this city is to turn off all electronics and climb under the bed. How many bodies and vigils will it take to wake the village? I'll keep working through with art until I find better way to process horror.

Misery
By Nordette N. Adams

Murder prowls,
interrogating black
survival until
every day becomes one
ring. Hope, blindfolded, dies
young.

The City of the Dead
in its season, New Orleans,
waves white hankies: Precious Lord,
take her hand ... Surrender. We
surrender like the lamb
yellow flowers on teens' graves.
Petals on the wind parade.

January 13, 2012
Nordette N. Adams

the times, a poem by Lucille Clifton

the times
By Lucille Clifton

it is hard to remain human on a day
when birds perch weeping
in the trees and the squirrel eyes
do not look away but the dog ones do
in pity.
another child has killed a child
and i catch myself relieved that they are
white and i might understand except
that i am tired of understanding.
if this
alphabet could speak its own tongue
it would be all symbol surely;
the cat would hunch across the long table
and that would mean time is catching up,
and the spindle fish would run to ground
and that would mean the end is coming
and the grains of dust would gather themselves
along the streets and spell out:

these too are your children  this too is your child

Lucille Clifton © copyright
from Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000

Ms. Clifton died February 13, a week ago today. Her poem "the times" fits with the spirit of this blog, The Urban Mother's Book of Prayers.

Time Travel at Newark International Airport (poem)

A little reflection from 2006 on how knowing history and heritage impacts us.

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Read poem's text at this link: "Time Travel at Newark International Airport" by Nordette Adams, Music by Rahkyt © 2006

  

Gaining Yardage (Saints & New Orleans win poem)

Gaining Yardage
By Nordette N. Adams

New Orleans,
where we have struggled
together,
now dance
together,
and weep in joy and leap
together.

We have huddled,
together,
having seen our future shimmer
in the gleam of football helmets
black and gold.
We have believed
to see our city
not drowning in canal and Pontchartrain waters,
not broken like the levees,
not shamed forever naked to the world
at woe in a storm-beaten Superdome
but lifted
high above the flooded night
together.

We have looked at Saints
on a field in flesh.
We have prayed with saints
in the heavens.
We have persevered
together.

Now we smile like drunkards,
loving everyone,
high not on Bourbon
(well, yes, some)
but high on hope,
everyone the same,
hugging with equal felicity
strangers and kin folk in the streets,
greeting in common tongue, "Who Dat!"

We must drink in each moment,
be in each second,
savor each breath of this sweet
victory air.

And when we again
find ourselves not
in shirts black and gold
but pitted
against each other in
skins black and white,
when we touch the ground
and see in our skins we
are not saints, but human--
blood rooted African, European,
Viet Namese, Mexican,
Creole, and Cajun--
when our halos rust
in common humid air,
may we shake off
smothering spiteful dust,
hold fast to ties that bind
and win again
together.

© 2010 Nordette N. Adams

Sunni Patterson Gives Her 2 Cents

Sunni Patterson, who will perform tomorrow night at Soul Series spoken word event with Saddi Khali in New Orleans, has appeared on HBO's Def Poetry and prestigious venues around the world. She is a New Orleans native. In the video below from 2Cent TV she gives her "2 cents on" social justice and people living below heritage.

Read about Soul Series at the New Orleans Literature Examiner.

May God Bless You Exceedingly, a sonnet

First published 2006


May God Bless You Exceedingly
   (a sonnet for the sweet and humble)
By Nordette Adams

Friends, may His grace and mercy shine sweet light
upon your lives this day and times beyond.
May His wings shadow you when you take flight.
With your fresh dreams, let not a thief abscond.
Let love from dawn to dawn reign in your world.
Let peace know home within your heart always.
Let no vile creatures crush your precious pearls.
Let joy join you and keep you all your days.
When you take rest upon each day's relent,
may He whose gift is sleep bless you with dreams,
with this your rest is fully heaven sent,
so may you rise with wisdom in full streams.
        I send this blessing to your door because
        you've shown me you seek love and not applause.

© Copyright 2006 Nordette N. Adams

Donations for the Homecoming Gang Rape Victim

In my post on the young girl who was gang raped victim during her high school's homecoming dance in Richmond, California, Lara Colvin left the following information in comments about how to help the victim.

If you would like to donate to the fund specifically set up to benefit this young woman and her family, you may send a check to Richmond High School, 1250 23rd St., Richmond, CA 94804. Checks should be made out to "Richmond High School Student Fund" with "Sex assault victim" on the memo line.

You may also want to consider a contribution to your local rape crisis center since rapes take place every day in communities—both big and small—all over our country.

As I said in my post on the poem "Daughter, Our Daughter," this horrific crime has shaken up not only me but people across the nation. CBS news reports the suspects wore bullet proof vests at their arraignment.

The Crowd Watching, Homecoming Gang Rape

With many other Americans, I continue to struggle with the details of the homecoming dance gang rape in Richmond, Ca. The gang rape is enough horror of its own, but the crowd watching, some cheering and taking cell phone photos but doing nothing to stop the atrocity, is a twisting of the knife.

If you've visited this blog before, then you know that I write poetry and prayers related to youth violence and other issues that concern mothers/parents. I felt a poem on the homecoming rape should be posted here.

Daughter, Our Daughter
By Nordette N. Adams

When I was young, I sought boys' praise, hoping a knight
scooped me up onto his fast white stallion. On the radio
the Temptations and Supremes made love between women and men
seem like a sweet thing, wild sugar cane, precious as pearls good.

And our daughters dream these dreams still, ignore our push
to higher ground, neglect our wish that they first gift themselves
with the self esteem we lacked. Perhaps into our DNA is
hacked a thirst for male attention.

When I was young, I worried to fit in, lamented to my mother
"Sometimes, Mama, I have no friends." Oh, to be Marsha Brady!
Or dance on the beach with Frankie and Annette. Growing.
Older, I don't regret knowing myself.

And our daughters in their teens dream the old dreams.
To fit in and have friends, maybe they trust the wrong grin.
Yearning for acceptance, soft, tender, renders them easy prey.
Too eager to follow the concealed foe.

When I was young I dreamed I might have children, a boy
and girl for whom I'd string better pearls. As offerings
I'd raise each up to do this world no harm.
I'd mold noble souls.

And our sons see us work to make for them and their sisters
a viable life. The adoration pours from our breasts. Our
maternal potency commands respect. Why do they not
confer our honor on girls at the mall, in school halls?

I am old, having abandoned the error of youth but taken on sorrow
hearing of a girl ravaged by wolves. Undone a stone's throw from
music. Did she dream the dreams I once dreamt, to be the belle
spun by the boy, believing safety's with friends?

That daughter's shed an innocence no woman reclaims. We do not
know her name but her pain too many of us women know well.
To our fathers, our husbands, our sons ... How
do we restring this broken strand of pearls?

(c) Copyright 2009 Nordette N. Adams

Heinous crimes conjure a grief-stricken, sometimes angry, sometimes more reflective muse. I write poetry and prayers to work through these bouts of malaise over societal decay. Believe me, while the gang rape took place in Richmond, Ca., living in New Orleans, La., and listening to the nightly news, is not conducive to sweet dreams.

The story of the gang rape prompted this poem and also hearing that the victim was not popular at school.

(Post updated 10/30 with this quote) ... One story getting particular attention this morning is based on comments made by the victims' friends at a safety meeting held at the school Wednesday night.

In an article posted on CNN International, a picture begins to emerge of the 15-year-old victim, who had come alone to her homecoming dance, "gorgeous in a sparkling purple dress and faux diamond baubles."

... Baker later described the 15-year-old girl as a churchgoer who struggled to fit in at Richmond High.(source)

The possibility that she'd been drinking and ignoring for a moment that a minor should not have had access to alcohol, I wonder if a need to be liked and to fit in contributed to her willingness to follow a boy she thought she knew into a darkened area of the campus. I've heard that predators, like the young males who raped this girl, sometimes hone in on people who they can tell are looking for connection.

This is not saying it's the victim's fault because the scary thing is that most of us are looking for connection, and sometimes even when we're strong and confident we may find ourselves unwittingly in the presence of wolves. When you're a 15-year-old girl, possibly unaware of the depths of human treachery, the danger increases. In fact, as I wrote at WSATA, I have a friend who was gang raped as a teen. She too followed a friend who turned out to not be a friend at all, and she was liked in high school.

In addition, I recall hearing of these types of incidents in college. A guy would invite a girl who he knew trusted him or liked him to his room, and then he and his friends would gang rape her. They called it running a train. Sometimes they drugged the girl to keep her quiet. You heard the stories, but never heard them from official sources. The girls, embarrassed, thinking it was their fault or not wanting to be labeled as rape victims, did not always report the rapes.

As for a gang rape and a crowd watching, every time I hear such cases I'm baffled that 1.) a group of people could rape a person and 2.) that people could watch and do nothing tot stop it. I was raised to not stand by and watch another person be abused, and so I can't wrap my head around not at least going off to call the police unless someone was keeping you from calling via gunpoint. Some psychologists have explained the willingness to watch and do nothing as Genovese Syndrome, named for a woman whose murder was overhead by neighbors who did not call the police. The theory's been disputed in some circles saying the facts of the Kitty Genovese case on which the theory is based are inaccurate.

According to CNN, some of the students are beginning to speak out about the school district's failure to create a safe environment. That's a ray of hope for the community that the Richmond school district has some students who care.

A Heart Burdened by Youth Violence

Every Off the Wall Thing
By Nordette Adams

What I say, I say in draft because
minute to minute my heart updates its
wrath, sorrow, shame with a ripping of veins
like hair from an undone mind.
With each new crime against a young one
by a young one, my heart bleeds an ugly pus
with raped rhyme that misses the joy of
Hallmark Cards. Misses the forward lift
of a literary bard's song.

The news is wrong! We scream.
We want it to be a nightmare from which
morning will bring a punch line or
a sign that we're not really here
and what we see is not what we've gotten
but each heinous headline punches us in our guts
like the stench of rotten meat ... so real
so inescapable.

Our sons are dying and sometimes with them
our daughters too fall into tombs.
Our minds lack the room to comprehend this madness.
So we search the heart of God, the mind of science,
the dreck of media buzz for an inkling of sanity,
any reason that says because we've done X
our children have no why.

Some of our children have no why for why they are here.
They dare not dream a meaning of life.
They deem themselves and others unworthy of any
breath of God, righteous gift, claim of spiritual wealth.
They are adrift in a sea of nothingness,
and we don't know who put them on these rafts to hell.

We don't know. We don't like pointing fingers. We
despise mirrors and snapshots of ourselves rushing,
tired, and lost. We don't care to levy the tax or cost
that brought us here and nobody wants to show us the clear
path that brought us to this dungeon unless
they live high in ivory or behind a gate
or sleep in the furs of privilege.

Is it your child or her child or his baby that my baby
must fear walking home from school?
What foolishness is this that makes our fruit raise spears
like savages instead of warriors for justice and healing?
I will take any dumb theory, grasp at any straw, even
the hypothesis that what we have here is the curse of Rome,
be it lead poisoning or unbridled debauchery.
Just give me something I can fix to make the nightmare stop.

Make it stop!

(c) Copyright 2009 Nordette Adams

I haven't posted here since April, but have been feeling that given the rise in youth violence, which has weighed on me for nearly a year, that perhaps what this blog should be is nothing but poems and prayers on this issue. At my other blog I wrote fairly recently on the beating of Derrion Albert, "His Death, Our Shame", and last night I heard about the burning of Michael Brewer by five Florida teens. What can we do?

What makes mothers cling to dangerous men?

Sometimes I go days ignoring the news in New Orleans because I don't want to hear stories with headlines like these, "17-year-old charged with murder, rape of 8-month-old." I don't if Arnold Ross did what they say he did. He is the boyfriend of the murdered and raped infant's mother, however, and sadly that makes it more likely his confession is valid.

Nevertheless, New Orleans and also deputies in Jefferson Parish, where the crime occurred, have a reputation for not playing fair with suspects, so I'll make sure to say Ross is the "alleged" murderer and rapists of Da-Von Lonzo, 8-month old. WWL TV provides this quote from the police:

Ross has a lengthy criminal history with arrests for possession of crack cocaine, possession of marijuana, obscenity, battery on a correctional officer, three counts of battery on a school teacher, three counts of theft, illegal carrying of a weapon and assault.

Whether Ross committed this horrific crime or not, I wish I could see the mother who loved him enough to let him into her heart and near her child.

Yes, I know the following is a sentimental poem, but moments like this sometimes need sentiment.

Your Heart on Crack
A poem by Nordette Adams

A lover should be like the balm in Gilead,
Soothing each day's sorrow,
He should be Hope's conjurer,
Salvaging tomorrow.

A man you bring into your bed
Should be of fatherly fabric,
Not gangsta quieting babies with fists,
defiling life with his madness.

You can weep on my shoulder, young ma,
too young to know your own worth,
less how to protect what's precious,
the child to whom you gave birth.

(c) 2009 Nordette N. Adams

She Maketh Us to Dream (poem)

author Toni Morrison

She Maketh Us to Dream
By Nordette Adams

Jealous of the stories you tell.
You scooped gold from our people's marrow,
preserved blood in the genie's lamp.

Rubbing up resurrection should come easy like lavender wildflowers
'cuz you've marked us with a her-story
and a his-story and fiction for our babies' futures.

You be a mother and I be a mother and we be women
envisioning a wondrous world.
You tell a tale that makes me dig.

I am proud of your fabled truth,
you be a woman and I be a woman and we
make fresh vision a seed.

© 2009 Nordette Adams

Mama's hands working grace ( Mother's Day poem, 2007)

Mama's hands working grace
By Nordette Adams

Sometimes we sink, sorrowful, search
brooding skies for blessings.

   They have skin like black pearls,
   eyes of wisdom, the light that soothes
   the broken and burdened.

When we wrestle in brown clays of frailty,
claw up from mud, wearing our brokenness like rusted armor,
we seek their beauty that is dark like us--
hair roped or kinked like ours,
lips burning with fullness of hungry dreams for
children and fathers, the bettering of our village.
Their noses are wide enough to breathe all God in
until our chests rise and fall in disrobed joy.

The signs of beauty dark like us are our mama's hands, working.

These hands pull infants up by ankles,
slap diapers down, cool and wrap bottoms.
These hands strip collard greens,
pick a chicken, sift red beans,
chop the garlic, onion, and green peppers,
set ways that season us to face a hard planet.

Mamas rock us in our grumblings until we stop the whine,
learn to sing, to work through stings.

Their hands discipline the backtalking mouth,
the stupid, boy-crazy girl,
the boy, crazy for street trouble who swaggers to his beat,
disbelieving this truth--
Death respects nobody,
Death don't spare.

Their hands comfort big black men
with big mother spirit when sons and husbands
wail like colicky babes choked up on milk,
soured by a world that don't want 'em,
grip us when we grown but shaken, when we weep 'cuz life's too much--
somtimes life's all too much like a hard, humbling death.

These hands type or straighten, wait tables or drive buses
so more hands will find bread or tie shoe laces or go to college.

We grab at love multiplying in these hands,
her warm, curling fingers, her palms
lined first faintly with life's unprobed paths,
later branded by a tangle of choices made putting us first.
She puts us first like the God who calls us children.

Our brown-hand mothers rise with the waking sky,
work past sunset, gift us with the power of
all brown-hand women cherishing fruit.

(c) Copyright 2007 Nordette Adams. All rights reserved.
Previously posted at BlogHer.com

Mother of the Stubborn Child (poem)

Mother of the Stubborn Child
By Nordette Adams

I sag like a muggy morning drenched in a swamp's summer mist,
my bones feel as ancient as its mud when I see
you teeter on the brink of a ruined life,
prowl dark streets with wild seed.

Come back to me, my son; hear my voice, my daughter.

A mother's love should know no bounds.
What bounds there are my heart spills over
as it did the day I first saw your face, brown
and round and held you to my breasts.

I pray for you, my son, light candles for you, daughter.

A mother's tears speak her prayers as much as words.
A mother's chiding speaks her love as much as meals.
A mother's worry may paralyze her spirit, but
A mother's courage can vanquish fear.

May my whispers and light guide you home.

© 2009 Nordette Adams

Cool Mother's Day video gift.

Mom's Rising, a nonprofit, has a cool computer application that let's you send your mother a high tech card of sorts. The group's produced a "news" video that you can customize to include your mother's name or the name of the woman who's been a mother to you, or the name of your wife who's a mother that dubs her "Mother of the Year." Click here to insert your mom's name and send video. The writing on the page will also include your mother's name once you type it in. It's a riot! After you do the first one, you can send more to other women in your life who mother those around them.

Also, see my book picks for Mother's Day at Examiner.com.

Song of the Near Empty Nest (a mothers' poem)

Song of the Near Empty Nest
a poem by Nordette Adams

Some mornings I get happy.
I remember old mothers shouting in church.
They hopped, heads back, faces up to God,
palms outward and the swell of
Glory! Glory!

My spirit's jumping in its cage,
in this old body the soul leaps.

Sometimes I get low.
I remember old mothers wringing hands,
Jesus! Jesus! the child's hard-headed.
Heads bowed and a swell of prayer.
Mercy! Mercy!

My spirit's trembling in its cage,
in this old body the soul kneels.

Today I am an old psalm
spoken to young mothers in the square.
They chase toddlers and bear the future,
seeking wisdom and the swell ...
Glory! Glory!

© 2009 Nordette Adams

On The Murders of Calyisse and Fitzgerald, SUNO Students, NOLA

I have written a poem-prayer that came from my trying to process the senseless deaths of Calyisse Perkins and Fitzgerald Phillips, both 19 and students at Southern University New Orleans. They pair dated, and in the wee hours of Sunday morning, April 19, two thugs abducted them and sent a request for $10,000 ransom via Phillips' cell phone to the parents. Today NOLA police discovered the teens' bodies in an abandoned house in Gert Town, and despite the police saying earlier that was no drug connection, today they say Phillips may have known his and Calyisse's murderers through a marijuana connection. Read earlier blog post/story here.


Greek Tragedy in Black
By Nordette Adams

I saw her on the news this morning,
Calyisse's mother, pleading for her daughter's safe return.
She could not understand why anyone would harm
her baby, 19, who'd hurt no one. And
this mother had no money to pay ransom.

Their lives held promise, young lovers in college,
but I am guilty of a hopeless heart.
I did not believe Calyisse breathed.
Nor had faith Fitzgerald, the boyfriend, lived.
The stench of a killer's lies lingered,
to ask for ransom when the body's cold.

And Sheila Reneau, the mother, wept. And I wept
when they found the bodies hidden in an empty Gert Town house,
two black teens murdered by two black adult males and cast
into an abandoned shack like garbage.

Lord, You sit high but look low.
and see that the heart of man makes evil.
You, the Creator of all.
And you say to us Fear not.

Forgive me, Lord. I am afraid.
Forgive me, Lord. I am angry.
Forgive me, Lord. I want blood--
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth--
My heart trembles with rage at this evil done to teens
dreaming dreams.

And my heart gazes at the mountaintop, looking for
her mother and his mother, and our brothers and sisters,
our aunts and uncles, for the circle of elders.

We seek a place of solace, sanctuary
from this Evil that roams our streets,
drunk on our children's blood.

The streets of Gert Town howl a too-familiar blues.
Souls fold over sobbing, ripping with wails.
Houses flood with wailing mothers' tears,
and NOLA's soul goes low, almost into the coffin.

I should go to these women and add my tears to a river in Gert Town.
I should find Sheila Reneau and hold her to me.
I should find Fitzgerald's people and let
our grief flow into the streets, swell and flood the city until
our tears reach Your throne.

She is every mother and I am every mother.
We bury our faces in hands ill equipped to fight.
We see a new monster. We have not seen so hideous a creature before
that jigs down our streets, picking the fruit of our womb from its teeth
with our ancestors' bones.

I hold my children to to my breast,
chilled at the rustlings of death.
But Calyisse's mother is missing a daughter
and Fitzgerald's mother is missing a son.

We crawl through blackness listening for a flutter of wings.
Send angels, Lord. Let them bring us flaming swords.

(c) 2009 Nordette Adams

Terrytown Murders, Toddler Shot in Head (Poem-prayer)

The poem-prayer that follows this introduction and news excerpts is written in response to a horrific multiple-murder case in Terrytown, a New Orleans metro area suburb. Here are excerpts from stories about the tragedy.

Fortunato said authorities believe two unidentified men entered an apartment in the area and "executed" a 23-month old male toddler and the baby's 19-year old mother. Wielding handguns, the men also shot a 6-year old boy and 11-year old girl who were in the home. The 6-year old died en route to University Hospital, while the 11-year old remains in critical condition. (Writer, Allen Powell II at Times Picayune, April 11)

Per the Picayune story, witnesses said two men in dark clothing kicked in the door and began shooting, and "authorities also located crack cocaine and marijuana in the apartment."

I agree with a woman who identified herself as the toddler's aunt to Powell,

"Whoever did it was lowdown," the woman said. "These children don't know about what's happening. ...They (the shooters) just don't have a soul."

And then the story gets worse, the grief-stricken young mother of the dead 6-year-old is tased by the police.

The mother of Four Overstreet grew irate with authorities when she arrived at the Monterey Court apartment where the rampage happened before 4 a.m., Saturday. When she got physical, deputies stunned her to bring the situation under control, Col. John Fortunato said.

... Four died at the hospital from a gunshot wound to the head.

Robert was also shot in the head. Sterling was shot in the back, and the 11-year-old suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the body, Fortunato said. (more of the story at this link)

WWL TV reports that the frantic mother and her boyfriend were arrested and characterized them as "fighting" with the police.

Rayshika Overstreet, 29, Four's mother, who arrived on the scene later, was subdued with a Taser after she became belligerent with police and struck an officer and struggled with another officer, police said.

She was charged with interfering with the police, resisting arrest by fighting, battery on a police officer, contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile because of the narcotics seized from her apartment and possession of crack cocaine and possession of marijuana, police said. (WWL)

According the newspaper, 19-year-old murder victim Dominique Sterling had been baby sitting the 6-year-old who died and the 11-year-old who survived for Overstreet. However, the child pictured in this post is toddler Robert Claiborne, Sterling's son. Sterling's relatives say that she recently moved to the neighborhood, was doing a favor for Overstreet by babysitting, and that Sterling was not involved with drugs.



Like a Revelations Day
By Nordette Adams

When the lights go down in NOLA in the 3rd, in the 9th, in the 7th,
on streets not known for cultured gardens,
we hunch in corners, curl behind locked doors.

When the lights go up in NOLA, the city's staged with blood.
We stumble into her streets stuttering, hands stretched like blind men, fingers
fumbling at silver crucifixes, searching for the blank wooden cross.

We cry to believe that You came in flesh and escaped death for us all.
O' God, we need you, our fingers creep for the hem of your garment.
Our children fatten undertakers. POW! POW POW POW!

Is this what a last day is? Is this the last days we heard of,
that mothers and fathers would not know their children,
that children would hate brother and sister?

If a mother must go to one more funeral,
      she will go into the grave with that child.
If a grandmother has to bail out one more son,
      she will lock herself in the cell.
If a child has to dodge one more bullet,
      will she clamor to meet her end?

O' Lord, we fall on our knees.
We fall on our knees and seek your face.
We seek your face, we wail at chaos.

Rein in evil, Lord. Counsel our souls to order.

(c) 2009 Nordette Adams

The Black Mother of Us All

This is a cross-post of sorts from my other blog, expanded with a poem on "Mother Africa" because without the diaspora, the ripping of black people from Mother Africa's womb, we wouldn't need to have a "Black History Month," the topic of this blog post. And it seems appropriate to speak of Mother Africa with allusions to African Eve in The Urban Mother's Book of Prayers because all mothers, black, white, brown may trace themselves back to that continent/source whether they acknowledge their roots or not.

Today's thinking was triggered when I saw the Black History widget posted above at Regina's Family Seasons and decided to post it because I've seen the question asked on blogs, "Do we still need Black History Month in "post-racial" America?"

Yes, we need it, especially urban mothers because cities tend to be genuine melting pots in which mutual respect for and an understanding of your neighbor's culture encourages not only living in harmony, but also helps us identify mutual goals. In addition, urban schools are in trouble when it comes to teaching primary subjects reading, writing, and arithmetic. If our children miss out on those three, you know they're also missing history lessons, and yet sometimes knowing your history, the good stock from whence you came as well as an ancestors' errors, can be the news that motivates you to do your best.

All mothers, both urban and rural, who want to raise their children to respect the contributions of other cultures need Black History Month, something marked on their calendars that reminds them to educate their children about their own history and the history of people who have been marginalized by mainstream culture. Seeing that a better world is more than the slick images promoted on television or magnified by societal bias broadens a child's mind with stories of courage and perseverance. Knowing the stories of people, including women, who have succeeded despite huge obstacles thrown in their paths by a dominant culture, gives us hope that we too can overcome.

We also need it because post-racial America, if it exist at all, is young and ignorant, at the amoeba stage of its evolution. I'm with Cornel West on this post-racial thing. Post-racial America does not mean an America without racism because we're still human in physical bodies; so, people still see and have biases.

President Barack Obama is a beacon to many, but focusing on the achievement of one man would be a mistake. For instance, despite seeing President Barack Obama everyday, or maybe because they do, some whites will separate him from the rest of African-Americans and see him as like them and the rest of us the way they've always seen us, through the narrow scope of crime reports on the nightly news. Humans have a tendency to focus on information that supports the prejudices to which they cling.

On this separation of Obama from the rest of the black folk, if you grew up black and well-spoken, you know what I mean because you've probably had an uninformed white person say something like this to you, "You're not like those other black people." I figure this type of white person is at home saying the same thing to the TV screen when they hear Barack Obama speak or watch his beautiful family. "They ain't like the other niggras." (And notice I keep saying "some" or a "certain type of" when speaking of white people because I know that they are no more monolithic in thinking than some of them think black people are.)

But, as indicated earlier, Black History month isn't only about educating whites, it's about teaching our children. Until school history books mention the contributions of Africans and African-Americans throughout the text, we'll need ways to highlight black history.

So, while we have an African-American in the White House, we see clearly that we're not uncolored; we're still black in America, which is why, I suppose, CNN is taking another stab at its Black in America special that got blasted in the blogosphere last year. I've heard the network is doing another installment that focuses on solutions, perhaps because the last one depressed viewers.

We hope that one day the children we've trained and nurtured--kissed on the cheek following bed stories of black kings and queens, yellow emperors, brown and white conquerors--will walk in a world that does not see color first. Sounds good, but the side effect is that they may not see how they themselves are unique, the roots of how we as a people came to be. Being simply one more face in the crowd can be soothing but also soul-dampening.

Forgetting our ancestors is the fastest way to repeat the errors of our ancestors and revert to our baser selves. Knowing our past is a way to honor our ancestors who made better choices and to draw strength and wisdom from their journeys.

Also, I suppose, with all this focus on Obama, a man for all seasons, we forget that it is through women we come to life. A mother bore us all.

So, I leave you today not with a prayer, but with a meditative poem on Mother Africa, on how we forget to honor from whence we came, and how through memory and honor we may heal. This poem first posted on another site by request.

Mother of Our Flesh
By Nordette Adams

Behold us all, we the ungrateful children,
who spring from the womb then recoil,
curse, and hiss, we adders at our mother's suckling tits,
grow to wild kings and their hordes,
snicker or escape while mama's raped.

We trace to blackest Eve our mitochondrial DNA,
and to the lands of Cush, Ethiopia, owe our first-world splendor.
The Greeks loved these and so engendered themselves
in all points imitation.
The Romans loved the Greeks,
and upon these heads rest our richest civilizations.
But for the womb that birthed our magnification,
we pay no tribute, let her limbs, breasts, noble neck and brow
fall to dispute and the ravaging howls of corruption--
we the ungrateful children.

    Africa, our mother, we have forsaken.

Is this one more reason that Earth comes to tribulation,
because we have disavowed our mama's beauty,
her grace, and peoples to her soil
still born?

    Africa, mother of our flesh!

What must we do this dawn to restore you in our hearts?
What must we do to suck from your wounds
our own poisons concealed?

What must we do to heal?

© Copyright 2005 Nordette Adams



Additional Links

• Do We Still Need Black History Month? (Spreading the Word)
• Morgan Freeman Backlash (Black Press USA)
• Do We Still Need Black History Month? (NJ.com)
• Black History, American History (HuffPo)
• After Obama (No Warning Shots)
• Yes, We Still Need Black History Mont (a 2007 article)
• Do We Still Need Black History Month? (The Kitchen Table)