4 posts tagged “cheryl lynn moyer”
Black Belt Blues
One day Rosa Parks was just too tired
of accepting that's how things are.
Martin Luther King had a prophetic vision
he wouldn't live to see the mountaintop.
Sweltering heat, poverty, racism and despair
still claim all the breathing space
between the catfish ponds and the cottonfields.
The blind, the crippled, the poor, and the elderly
bundle up in layers hugging their own warmth
to sleep at night, staring at falling stars
through their cracked and rusty sky.
Children nibble a mouldy potato.
Abandoned cars, corpulent vultures
loveless dogs walking nowhere
claim these back rural dusty roads.
Raw sewage pours into the open grass.
The sun bakes it all hard and crusty.
You can clean motel rooms for a dollar each.
Walk four miles to wash a white woman's clothes.
Beg a ride to the grocery store.
Mothers sing their Baptist prayers.
For your children's sake you stay alive.
The young people have escaped
rewarded with real jobs, real pay, real benefits
In the cities and way up north.
Their mothers used a switch with loving hands
to help them find their blackbird wings.
But once they've tasted
respect, human dignity, a life worth living,
they can't go home again.
They can't sleep there.
There's no peace in their souls,
only fear, anger, defiance
and the god damned bloody tears.
Cheryl Lynn Moyer
(Published in Down In the Dirt Magazine - 2006)
Milk of Life
A pure white Persian cat had just carefully
shook each of her kittens throats
until they were asleep.
She had no milk to feed them.
She laid them in a row in the sun's
last rays to keep them warm.
Their eyes dimmed into the night.
Now as I stare into empty cupboards
and the bottomless grief on mothers'
faces, I wonder
how many infant souls
have been silently laid to rest
gently beneath the daffodils?
Cheryl Lynn Moyer
Cheryl Lynn Moyer FEMA Journals - One Year After Katrina -
(Sample Chapter)
Chapter One - Disbelief
Out There
(Boligee, AL)
The last lingering rays of sunset
framed a shattered trailer
surrounded by a flooded field
of discarded tires,
cushions and cans floating
in circles of oil.
"Don't go out there,"
I'd been warned.
Six months after Ivan's wrath,
I thought, "Who could survive
like this?" The tall black man
was angered by the disbelief
on my face. His hands
and face were clenched.
I told him,
"I'm not wading through all that."
So he lifted me aloft, cautiously
carrying me through the stink,
the flies, and the muddy water,
dropping me on his doorstep.
Inside his home, I surveyed
smashed windows, mildewed
walls and furniture, no
electricity, a stained mattress
in the dry corner, with a baby
wrapped in a soiled towel.
I tapped - Replace All -
in my government computer.
I glanced at his ID,
then he carried me back
to another world.
Since I was traveling the back rural roads of Alabama, there were no street signs or any sort of identifiable public buildings to mark the way back to my motel room. Fortunately, the goats were still grazing at my first turn. A farmer chasing his escaped cows with his truck pointed out to me, the rest of the way.
It was now late November of 2004 and lumber trucks congested the roads by day. Trails of cotton stuck to the their edges, having blown off overloaded trucks crawling towards the local cotton gin. The previous day I had stopped to pluck some cotton as souvenirs. During the heat of the day, I bent over and worked my way across the field grabbing the soft stray blooms. My sweat slowly began to drip into my eyes. Even so, it was a strangely satisfying experience for this 51 year old New Jersey woman. Then at the corner of the field I caught sight of an old decaying scaffold. I ominously felt an overseer's eyes peering across a recent century, disapproving of my slow pace. I laid my cotton collection back down on that hallowed ground and returned to the relative safety of my car.
My 1998 Oldsmobile had become analogous to my time machine. Inside, the computer sucked up all the numbers and information I fed it, whirling on back-up charged batteries. However, it's location finder was useless, claiming none of these rural roads existed. Neither could my cell phone connect to the current century. This "Black Belt" region, as it was referred to, had slipped between the cracks in time.
The absence of speed limit signs and the infrequency of traffic encouraged my sometimes reckless driving. Long flat empty roads begged fast speeds. My curiosity often precipitated u turns in the middle of nowhere. Cows blocking the road again, could be the catalyst to backing up long distances to look for another way.
Being lost was a daily ritual that began at the local post office, where everyone had a box for mail pick-up. I would receive directions to someone on my list. After I completed their home’s inspection they would describe in detail how to find someone else, or ride with me to show me the way. With luck I could find 6-8 people a day.
The paperwork was a nightmare. Or lack of it, I should say. Both trailers and shacks were passed down from relative to relative without any documentation. Families lived clustered together along dusty unpaved roads. Running cars were shared with abandoned ones parked all over their yards for parts. Driver’s licenses and identification were unnecessary. No one patrolled these areas. If someone had electrical service, extension cords were run from house to house. Utility bills were seasonal and shared. I had trouble proving what property belonged to whom. I had to request that everyone get notarized statements from whoever they had bought or received their property from. If it was a rental property, in most cases the owner had never repaired anything ever, but I couldn’t help any tenants. In one trailer, a tree and large sections of their roof still lay across the floor of their living room. This elderly couple that lived on SSI benefits could not afford to remove the limbs nor were they physically capable of the effort. No landlord in sight! I lectured their neighbors on their moral duty to assist them and checked back several days later to deliver donated materials. Meanwhile my motel office collected a stack of incoming paperwork for me by documented owners every day.
Not only was I shocked by the way these people lived, they were amazed by my existence. To them the FEMA signs in my windows were a warning I could not be trusted, I represented the federal government. So when I told them they would receive a check for repairs, they became nervous and suspicious, “No please, I can’t pay it back.” Many would not sign my inspection reports for processing at first. Until the FEMA checks started coming in. Real money! In their name! More than most would see at one time in their whole lives, as much as $20,000 or more!
Picture taken, Greene County, January 2005
After her trailer was repo'd, this woman
with a seizure disorder moved into her shed.
I met her washing in the ladies room
at a local gas station.
