~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Gerry Sloan

Strange Angels

What does it take to wave us awake,

to shake us out of our stupor?

In a natural disaster, no one cares

who's a Democrat or Republican,

only how to save your neighbor.

No one notices skin color, just that

your lips are turning purple and you

also bleed red. Why does it take a crisis

to bring out the best in us, to emphasize

our shared humanity, erase distinctions?

It's the white teenage boy in the 1920s

who delivered a Black woman's baby

in a borrowed boat when the levees

broke. When he dipped the newborn

in the muddy water, she looked at him

and inquired, "What's your name, son?"

"John," he said. "Then that shall be his name."

More than half a century later, he had to choke

back the tears when relating this, both his

and our better angels hovering near.

Gerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. His collections are Paper Lanterns (2011), Crossings: A Memoir in Verse (2017), and a chapbook-length selection in Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry (2022). Recent work appears in Slant, Cave Region Review, and Mid/South Sonnets. www.gerrysloanpoetry.com