Charlottesville tiki torches were mentioned the last one.
And Charlottesville is where I'm from.
This is where I live.
It's a quiet college town.
Like many in this country, with [INAUDIBLE]
but unlike many in this country, I guess,
there are a few statues that needed to be gotten rid of.
And it went on, and on, and on.
This poem was written right before the statues came down.
They were still there.
"Pedestrian Crossing, Charlottesville."
A gaggle of girls giggle over the bricks leading off
Court Square.
We brake dutifully and wait.
But there's at least 20 of these knob-kneed creatures, blonde
and curly, still at an age that thinks impudence is cute.
Look how they dart and dither, changing flanks
as they lurch along, golden gobbets
of infuriating foolishness, or pure joy,
depending on one's disposition.
At the moment, mine is sour.
This is taking far too long.
Don't they have minders?
Just behind my shoulder in the city park,
the Southern general still stands, stonewalling us all.
When I was their age, I judged Goldilocks nothing
more than a pint sized criminal who
flounced into other's lives, then assumed their clemency.
Unfair, I know, my aggression.
To lump them into a gaggle, silly geese.
When all they're guilty of is being young so far.