Pat McCutcheon

A white woman, I had learned the history of horrors: grisly holds of jammed slave ships, cruel auctions of black families torn apart, picnics at lynchings of castrated bodies. Then at seventy-five I learned, dismayed, that it took two full years for news of Lincoln’s proclamation to reach slaves in Texas, not knowing they were […]

She’d had to leave her graying mother whimpering in the basement, withered hands clutching a worn plaid blanket to her chin. She’d heard there were women learning to shoot, had to do something, not just cower with panic-stricken wives, mothers and children sheltering there in sleeping bags, petrified with every ear-shattering bomb blast. praying for […]

A lullaby lauding your purple stripe for the fearless who fought for Stonewall Inn, praising your bold red stripe honoring Harvey Milk’s resilient courage, blessing your orange stripe of healing for wounds external and internal. A lullaby filled with mourning for all those who died of AIDS, forgiving cake bakers who discriminate against same sex […]

A blessing on your contrasts, Arcata– baseball caps and dreadlocks, bicyclists and bikers, Budweiser 12-packs vying to outnumber Downtown Browns. Nuclear free zone where a 100 foot American flag waves beside the lupine-lined highway. Dodge turbo diesel pickups roar past homemade bio-diesel subcompacts. Bless white blossoms drifting to the sidewalk, whiffs of ganga wafting from […]

Standing in ragged rows, black coats drip, hushed, beneath the drizzle. One hundred or so strong, we face East this morning, toward Washington, D.C., three thousand miles away. On the soggy grass of the Arcata Plaza, an occasional green or yellow umbrella blossoms open. A woman holds a rainbow-colored sign, “Grandmothers for Compassionate Community.” Others […]