I have run,
a blur of dark blue,
the color of the night sky rushing over
the Mediterranean, dotted with stars, viewed with wonder;
Over the underground city, the caves,
the streets, the old, the poor, the sick,
the leather-skinned beggar
holding up her sleeping daughter
to the heavens and the people.
her eyes wet with Please.
Please.
This was not America, though I knew
America may someday be this.
It was an ancient rock formation that could show us all our dreams,
a neverending field of the forgotten dressed in green and crumbling marble.
This country was a blur of rock, ruin and flowers,
flying past me as I ran with arms outstretched,
as if the next step would finally find no ground.
But before I could part with that land, I was stopped
by a small boy standing calmly in my path:
brown skin, dark eyes shining joy,
black hair, white teeth and homespun cotton
matched the daisies in his hands,
his pink tongue incomprehensible, but
I knew the meaning of his smile, his white petals.
I was gathering flowers all the while,
scooping them up in my arms as I ran.
---
Cynthia Spencer is a student at Beloit College in Beloit, WI, currently living and working in Chicago. Her work has been published online in Shape of a Box and Poetry Cemetery. Her blog can be found at: http://schplynthia.blogspot.com.
