Trayvon

Trayvon should not have made the news

Trayvon Martin
1995-2012

unless it was some pat-you-on-the-back
for making honor roll or scoring winning point,
or doing a good deed and finding someone's dog
or bag of money hidden somewhere in the
neighborhood. He was no saint, got into
trouble now and then, back when he was alive.
Even if he courted danger, tried to look
most menacing when man approached,
even if he taunted or trash-talked, or raised
a fist, we'll never really know,
but there's a mother crying softly in the corner
of her living room tonight, because he's gone.
No graduation photos, no wedding with
him beaming there up front, no babies
sitting on her lap, no son to help her when
she's gotten old. A senseless death,
but when you talk about a boy who never
got to be a man, it always is, I think.
And guilt or innocence is never so important
to a mother as the pull upon her heart
that never leaves, even when the verdict's in,
and columnists stop writing of injustice,
and all the t-shirts with his face have faded
so that all you see are Trayvon's eyes,
the hope that once was there. The life.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

No agenda here - I have no comment on the Zimmerman trial or verdict at the moment. My mother's heart reaches out to his mother's heart, though, regardless of the peripherals. I know mothers of soldiers, mothers whose children committed suicide, mothers whose children died of illness or malpractice. I am a mother who knows the pain of burying a son. So don't even try to put some angle on this. Or if you do, kindly keep it to yourself.