courtesy: Wordpress Blog Random_Michelle
You are troubled old man.
I can tell,
from looking at those dark eyes
that must have seen multiple
generations born, grow
and then insolently pass you
by.
To them,
you’re just an unworthy relic
a nuisance of old beliefs
but old man
did you know
when I look at you
I see the embodiment
of the wealth of my history?
You are careful not to speak
because you’ve realized
your words are bothersome
to those who refuse to draw
near to your knowledge
and try to understand
how they can learn from what
you’ve seen and experienced
in ages that to me…
seem so foreign.
Even your language has been
shunned
by the culturally ignorant
who see it as uneducated,
filthy
lower class…
You must be troubled by what
we’ve become.
Your words are a sacred version
of intelligent adaptability
and the birth of unity
among the segregated tongues
that led to possibilities
of uprising and rebellion.
Your dialect
is the closest to the original
that reveals that this
newer version
I think I speak
only is filled with lack of
authenticity,
and its conformity to being
everything else
except what my own heritage
my.own.heritage
had formed me to be.
But even that is lost, you
see.
Your accent is a sound
that is curious to my ears
it’s lofty lilts
makes my soul long for
what it will never fully know.
You are troubled old man,
I can feel the worrisome energy
of your dismay
since our progress is now
defined by our inaction
and the empty speeches we say.
Your hands have held the earth
where our new buildings now are
built
but you built them long before
they were
by believing one day we’d be
able to do it.
But now becoming a
self-sufficient people
seems to belong to just the
dreamers…
Old man,
I know why you are troubled.
It’s because we are now slaves
to the highest bidder.
My Inspiration: The generational gap & Photo Prompt by Random_Michelle
© KohylahPiper 2015
