Mockingbird - Crown of Sonnets
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#1
"It is a sin to kill a Mockingbird.
While playing games with rocks or guns, defray,
them, please, ...shoot old tin cans. Each whispered song
from Mockingbirds, can heal the wounds of the day"
Virtues are cultivated, children are weeds,
exploring a small southern town. Seeds, so rare,
spread moral ivy, filling knotholes, threading trees,
lining streets, during mad-dog summers.
Scout, one sprout with solid roots, sifts wrong from right
in spite of bull-headed pride. Stirring
up dust, where resistance incites,
although, brother, Jem, gently, grows more reserved.
Scout, Jem, ...best bud, "Dill", are bronzed by summer's sky
Moral's compass guides them home, as night returns
#2
Moral's compass guides them home, as night returns
yet challenged, the precocious child
making assumptions. Folks would confound her!
Some people were an oddity and quite beguiling
Summer would sigh with ceiling fans, softly purring,
people napping, long afternoons. Wilted yawns
of a lethargic town, might seem undisturbed,
with complacency, behind pruned shrubs, tall grass, mowed.
Yet stilted air, would suffocate, with racial slurs
and secret hate. Some hid by day, and spending
their nights in masquerade, while crosses burned.
We'd see a face, pretentious smile, falsely blend
Integrity, at bitter cost, split wide the seams
in 1930. Civil rights were just a dream
#3
In 1930, civil rights were just a dream,
and motherless children were coming of age.
Bare feet were swift. Bandaged knees and hands unclean,
would slam old screen doors, to seek lemonade.
A ghost, they feared, in the raw sided house,
watched close. A tree in his yard, hid treasures he stashed.
The three Musketeers, upon discovering, shout!
Armed by bravado, they are ready to dash.
Putting yourself into another man's shoes,
is a lesson, soon learned by Scout and Jem.
They've faced their fear, and will make a friend. "Boo",
the 'phantom', a new best friend left trinkets and gems.
Kindness learned, role model intact, was Atticus Finch.
A measure of integrity, inch by inch.
#4
A measure of integrity, inch by inch,
advocate for those who won't stand a chance.
Folks down on their luck, where dollars won't stretch
in a depression full blown. Money is scant.
Fighting for the underdog, who have no paycheck.
What's right is right. What's wrong, is wrong.
Someone must stand at the end of the day,
where flies fill a courtroom and tempers grow stronger.
Regardless of skin, be it black, be it white
Unfit, by standards of talcum shaved chins,
if injustice is war, he'll give his lot.
The falsely accused, he'll defend, to the end
Those who wallow in mud, eventually sling lies
when honor goes to hell, and folks sit idle
#5
When honor goes to hell, and folks sit idle,
false accusations can simmer, slowly inciting
bigoted people, into mobs, spewing cries
of hate. Screaming "rape" into the night.
Ignorance and prejudice, are all of one stuff
with corn-likker sauce and gravy mentality,
amphibian worms, as if from a trough,
gorging on mania. They covet brutality.
Led by Bob Ewell, with arrogance oozing.
Clan- fed, tantrums squirming out of control.
Small minded men, choosing squalor, alluding
the truth. Some would sell their mother's soul.
They have lied on the stand, where justice treaded thin.
Where white man's word, over a black, always wins.
#6
Where a white man's word, over black, always wins,
was a rule of the thumb, during those years...
The innocent man, Tom, shackled, condemned,
taken away and waits to die, and endure
With Indian summer, waxing and waning,
Atticus chooses the simplest words.
His children need, wisdom, and calm understanding,
in trying to explain, that most men are good.
He tells them, gently, how someone so crude,
even Bob Ewell, no matter how evil
perhaps in his life, was misunderstood.
The hellish of summers begins to unravel.
But another ill wind, would brew up a storm,
to bring more than a flurry, into their home.
#7
To bring more than a flurry into their home,
burnt embers of color, drift down, red and yellow.
Carved pumpkins, and a grieving autumn, looms
in the night. Roaches encroach, deep in the shadows
As Scout rushes homeward, behind her on the trail,
a whiskey-breath nightmare, with evil intentions
Then, someone appears! Halts this devil,...,Ewell
is not immortal! .....as we come to conclusion.
A guardian presence, waiting to rally
has kept a vigil, guarding children who run,
swiftly through thickets. Lonely Boo Radley,
appeared like an angel, a bird seeking the sun
So pure of heart, and a thing so rare
It is a sin to kill a mockingbird
__________________________
Re-submitted for Skat's Premiere Contest: #4
Copyright © Carrie Richards | Year Posted 2014
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