I wrote this while Assistant Stage Managing “The Piano Lesson,” by August Wilson. I wrote it backstage one night, just trying to sum up the way I was feeling at the time about African-American issues. For those familiar with “The Piano Lesson,” the line “experience carved in oak” should make more sense.
Rating: Usually I add the olive oil last
Never the Same
Broken bits, stellar recovery
Twirling through church
Laughing through trouble
An experience carved in oak
A collage seen yet transparent
The vividness of death
The vibrance of life
The brutality of chains
The pathetic acceptance
A covert game played beneath the skin
yet based on pigment
Survival through Mars Winter
Grasping on an equator summer
Disease of a killing
Killing of a disease
The beauty of culture
Etched into the ether of a country
that originally wanted nothing to do with it
Never the same
Unjust, unfair, blind
But never the same
We, that is
Never the same
Saturn shines through the filter
Jupiter stains the cheeks
of a sweet mosaic with a bitter mortar
Sad to see the gap
but incredible to see it bridged.
Twirling through church
Laughing through trouble
An experience carved in oak
A collage seen yet transparent
The vividness of death
The vibrance of life
The brutality of chains
The pathetic acceptance
A covert game played beneath the skin
yet based on pigment
Survival through Mars Winter
Grasping on an equator summer
Disease of a killing
Killing of a disease
The beauty of culture
Etched into the ether of a country
that originally wanted nothing to do with it
Never the same
Unjust, unfair, blind
But never the same
We, that is
Never the same
Saturn shines through the filter
Jupiter stains the cheeks
of a sweet mosaic with a bitter mortar
Sad to see the gap
but incredible to see it bridged.
© 2004 Morgan Foster