In Memory of Michael Jackson

Tuesday, July 7, 2009 - The Day of Michael's Memorial

The strokes rise and fall with my mind
Entwined in a tight ball
A hard fist wound
In this bondage of clay.

I write to pray.

A little girl sits next to me on the train
Bound to the city that never sleeps.
She gazes at my writing hand whisking across the page,
In thoughts on the deep.
She doesn't know I am pouring out my heart to God.
She doesn't know that I am standing in the need of prayer.
Standing on holy ground seeking,
Knocking, asking
For the answers to lift my despair.

Her father puts his arm about her shoulder,
Looks down to her face
As she returns her eyes up to meet him
In the love shared in places of the heart.
He gives her a kiss.
How sweet.
It's what I desire from God.

I arrive at 33rd Street
To head uptown to Harlem's hallowed ground.
Where the trumpets sound
In remembrance of a little king boy
Who gave the world so much joy,
And is now heaven bound.

So in this sad hour
Today at the building named for Adam Clayton Powell,
We have come
From far and near places
To share in the end times
Of someone gone too soon.
We stand gathered
On the concrete floor board
Paved in the stones
Of bones
Swept from the graves
Of past slaves
Braving the waves ashore
To come aground
In a new day under heaven's gate
Opened to the exiting men
Been waiting
There
Where they beared up
The cross for the lost.

I stand amongst the throes
Of the weathered woes
Of the many souls
Who come to say goodbye
As we cry and sigh
For a dear loved one who has passed
On over to the by and by.
We suffer the lost of one of our own
Gone home
To sit with the Father on high.

We watched him croon a tune
As many, many swooned
Over this little prince.
We watched him grow into a young man
Rich in the light of love,
And the heart to care for those everywhere.
We were charmed by his shy smile,
His sweet tender touch
Of a wounded child.

We saw him come into adulthood.
And we stood and watched as the personal struggles
Challenged him seemingly overwhelmingly.
And I wished I could be there
Just so he would know how much I had come to care.
I could see the cast of fate,
The mask of late
Brought to bare...
such despair...
As shadows loomed in from corners
Where
Those who dare
To tend the garden
Hardened in the heated race
To maintain your place.

The line to define, confine and blind is covered in slime.

But on this day,,
On this walkway,
We had come to say to our dear Michael -
You are one of a special kind.
And we are reminded that it was God who defined you,
Who chose you.
To shine
From glory to glory.
This to be your story.

As the touching elements were spent
And tributes spoken in tokens of the heart,
Tears were shed
And we bowed our head to God
As we gave way to the spirit
In thanksgiving for the many ways
In which Michael's worth on earth
Gave birth to lasting moments
To remember the times
We shared today and yesterday
When he went away
Leaving an empty space in a hollow place
Never to come again.
But so thankful
That he has been.

We gathered together -
Little children, elderly men and women,
The middle-aged
who had all taken a turn on the dance floor
To the thriller movements
With Billie Jeans and gentle Bens
Rocking the night away
To spin in the winds of times
Bearing the cross
Of Michael's living legacy -
To love and be loved one for another -
Men, sisters, mothers and brothers
Alike
Black or white
And all the in-betweens
It seems.

The service ended
As the sprinkling of baptismal raindrops
Fell as heaven's dew.
It was very appropriate, I thought.
I love the rain.
We are one in the same
Coming from the clouds
Lovingly captured in mountains cloistered
Above where my window seat looks
Out to the blue sea
Berthed in me.
Joined in with the voices
Of the drummers sending over
The message to the Africa homeland
That the man mirrored
On the placards pasted on the wall above their heads
Was entering the kingdom hall.
I followed the rhythms
Within me rising to meet under the heavenly
Misty waters
Announcing Michael's entrance
Into the gates
Where St. Peter awaits
With the angels rejoicing
In song
That Michael's long road home
At last
Had come to pass.

Free at last, free at last,
Thank God almighty, he's free at last.

All My Love, Ruth

"We grieve for a moment, but joy comes in the morning."

Dedicated to Elena (Russia)
So precious and dear. We met. We wept. We came together
And held each other near.
Thank you for sharing your love for Michael with me.
I will not forget you, ever.

My Love, Ruth

The Man in the Mirror

Identity…

It defines individuality of a person, place or thing.
It describes a person’s uniqueness,
It classifies a person’s self, his nature, his personality or character.
A person’s identity labels him, gives a name to the distinctiveness of his person.
It serves to give a face to the essentials of somebody or something.
Setting up the standard characteristics that makes for recognition
As belonging uniquely to himself or herself, oneself or another being
In what constitutes the individual personality,
Nationality, and exceptionality.
Identity details the fact or condition of being what or which form of something,
Alike or sameness
Or similarity to me or you and who should be linked to who –
Who’s included, who’s excluded, who’s deluded or precluded.

A person’s features identifies his place of residence,
His common establishment, eminence and prominence
Of his family heritage,
His genealogy lineage,
The makeup of his roots,
Where he came from before when
Who was the father or mother long ago…
With the recognizable factors which make the person featured in the mirror
Projecting the representative markings
That distinguishes one from another brother,
Who you are in conjunction with the masses of others,
Where do you fit in the scheme of nature’s embodiments,
What kind of person are you as perceived by others.
What aspects of being who you are typifies your personality as it conforms
To the personality of others.

What is it which makes for recognition?

What makes oneself one self?

Is it from what fabric, what color, what origin, what likeness, what unlikeness
You are aligned, resigned, confined, entwined of mind?
How does your identity identify your moral fiber, your appeal,
Your integrity, reputation, sense of self worth?
How does it congeal with your birth?

Your personality traits are descriptive of you being who you are.
The personality is the quality of existing as a person.
Your behavior patterns -
Your good and bad qualities -
Is your persona.
Displayed in a hand-held glass bottle.
Your persona
Being – guise, role, part, façade, front face.

The totality of your attitudes, interests, emotional responses, social roles,
Define the characteristics that make somebody appealing or unappealing.
The image of character and personality that somebody wants
To show the outside world
Is the personal psychological self
Profiled in an outward pretense,
To give an impression of an image created for show,
Imaging to be what is not so.

But it is patterns of thought
Which define a person’s behavior.
His ego determines his opinion of himself;
His idea of his or her own importance or worth,
By birth or re-birth,
His self-esteem
Self-image
Sense of self
Is
The man in the mirror
Who is
Defined as
Portrayed by
Expressed in
Depicted as
Telling and foretelling of
A designation place with
A handle
Dubbed to be
Entitled
Or not
Branded to be so doing
Referred to, inferred, preferred, interred
As specified by,
Or as chosen to be,
Or not to be.

Which suggest that which is
Reputed and presumed to be thus and so
As identified
By the I.D. bracelet of the brand and label given at birth
Or a time when being
Known as a person with or without the character or characteristics
Of the persons of choice
Gave voice
To belong
In a group
With the chickens in a likely coup
Was reason to rejoice.

Clouding the subject of
A person’s uniqueness -
His difference from others in a way
That makes somebody or something special and worthy of note,
Being one of a kind,
Is a rare find which unique-nesses connote.
But comes with a troubling mind
Being confined
While longing to be free
To just
Be.

And so
The mirror invariably cracks
Under the weight of
The variable image
Looking back.

Which makes Michael Jackson’s death
All the more
A reflection of our
Crisis of identity.

“And all of us, who with unveiled face, continue to behold (as in a mirror)
the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transformed into His very own image
in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another;
for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” 11Cor. 3:18


Ruth