May 28: Graduation Parade, Possibility and Hope, Poem from "Kyrie"

This evening, I attended a graduation parade.  My daughter's boyfriend is part of the Class of 2020, and so I drove out to the high school, parked along the side of the road, and waited for all the seniors to come rolling by in the cars, streamers and balloons snapping, horns blazing away.

It was one of the first times since this pandemic really got serious a few months ago that I allowed myself to be part of a community event.  All the spectators stood by their cars, safely distant, and waited for their senior to drive by.  Even though I saw a few MAGA hats and a couple people simply not following the Covid-19 safety guidelines for the parade, this night wasn't about politics.  

It was about young people, smiling, laughing, waving, claiming this night as their own.  In the last three months, the Class of 2020 has faced challenges that haven't existed for close to four generations.  A global pandemic that brought school, work, scholarship applications, college visits and orientations, proms and graduation ceremonies to a complete halt.  For a while.

But tonight, the world moved forward a little.  Tonight was about young people, looking into their futures and seeing possibility and hope.  That was a miraculous thing to witness.

And Saint Marty gives thanks for that.

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

He planned his own service, the pine box,

the open lid, which hymns, chapter and verse,

who would pray, how long, who'd carry him out.

He wrote it all down in a fair hand,

stroking the shawl around him in his chair,

and gave away his watch, his dog, his house.

Emmett said, he'd have lain down in the grave

except he needed us to tuck him in.

He shaved each day, put on his good wool pants

chosen for the cloth and a little loose

as they lowered in another son-in-law.

Sat by the door, handrolling cigarettes

three at a time, licking down both ends,

and wheezed and coughed and spit in a rusted can.