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April 16, 2012
Which ones will see
By Gary Lindorff
The latest new poem by ThisCantBeHappening! resident poet Gary Lindorff
::::::::
I'm waiting in my car for a teacher friend
at the back of her school
and,
all at once,
the kids begin pouring out of the building,
most of them gravitating
to the spots
where the buses will pull up;
others weaving
in and out
of those clusters
in continuous motion. . .
One girl is doing cartwheels on the sidewalk,
another, spinning in place.
Blue is pervasive,
highlighted by touches of yellow,
red, white and purple. . .
But the whole effect
is like peering into multiple kaleidoscopes!
It is as if the space around these kids
is slowly turning,
and, by turning,
is forcing each one of them
to shift
like a tiny piece of tinted glass
into a new position. . .
. . .There is
a kind of axial symmetry
in that,
even though their energy
might be centered in going home,
they are completely caught up
in this anything-but-
random process
that is shuffling and sorting them
by who they are and will be
(relative to each other,
relative to their separate destinies). . .
And this process
somehow includes me,
because, as I watch,
I find myself growing desperate
to know
which ones will see
beyond what we
who see beyond
have seen. . .
-- Gary Lindorff
Dave Lindorff, winner of a 2019 "Izzy" Award for Outstanding Independent Journalism from the Park Center for Independent Media in Ithaca, is a founding member of the collectively-owned, journalist-run online newspaper www.thiscantbehappening.net. He is a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006).