i use to sit in grandmother's beauty shop window
watching the colorful life outside
watching her fingers smooth away the blues
greasing scalps and creating Sunday's best on Saturdays
waiting for my turn in her queenly chair
always time for just one more
always time for me
she would take down pigtails and ribbons
to ease my own blues away
braid my long locks, or simpy redo pigtails and ribbons
spin me around and kiss me
sometimes she would let me walk 2 blocks down to the corner liquor store for a bag of rock candy and a soda, as she watched from the doorway of my sanctuary.
i'd walk out into the world i watched so curiously from her window, loving the lil bit of independence, even under several watchful eyes.
cause here on this street, in this time...everyone knew your name
or at least they knew i was Mrs. Jewel's grandbaby.
i would walk 2 blocks in my red buster browns, past bluesy tunes, the smell of bbq, and struts of pimps and cadillacs a block long
times were simple and times were good then...
i've grown up now, moved away a long time ago
returned to find a life i once cherished, had been abandoned
no bluesy tunes, no smell of smokehouses, the liquor store is still there
but they don't sell rock candy anymore
and no one knows my name...
life is different here, life is complicated here
black owned business have been phased out unable to afford the rent or skyrocketing property taxes
homes and buildings replaced with red brick condos
down home food replaced with upscale that won't fill you up
lots of big names i see, but i miss the small ones
streets are clean, too clean
the "in" place to live from what i understand...
for me it always was, now you couldn't pay me to live here
for the streets are dead, the life is gone
no one here walks like music is playing in their head
no one here looks you in the eye
this street no longer has a heartbeat
i laugh seeing someone has sprayed "there goes the neighborhood "
on the front of one of the red brick buildings with all its fancy windows
just so happens to be the spot where Grandmother's beauty shop stood...i smile thinking maybe, just maybe, it was her doing.
I feel insides scream, angry what this city has done
pushing a community even further back, or should i say, yet another annihilation
i still hear it though, each time i pass that way...
on breezes mostly, returning from far away
echos of a world rich in life and soul
seen through a little girl's eyes
watching through Grandmother's beauty shop window.