Chantel Moore with her daughter Gracie
"Stay golden," she always said,
to friends and family.
We wore yellow shirts
when we marched for her,
in her memory.
A death that never should have happened;
her mother's tears will never end.
Her daughter will always
miss her mother; broken hearted,
all her friends.
Where is kindness, in this world?
Where has compassion gone?
Why do police act with such
aggression, when kind words
would soothe and calm?
Before you know kindness, the poet said,
you must wake up with sorrow.
We wake with sorrow every day.
Where is our kind tomorrow?
I don't know what to make of it.
This is not the world I knew.
But I see there is a portal,
we are meant to travel through,
a turning from the rhetoric
that has caused us all such pain,
a path of transformation
to make us kind again.
She was afraid and called for help,
but help is not what came.
She will be
forever golden.
We will not forget
her name.
Marching for Chantel (and George Floyd)
in Tofino in 2020.
For Chantel Moore, shot five times by a policeman making a "wellness" check. The House of Commons was presented with a bill soon after to address systemic racism in the RCMP. One MP abstained, blocking the bill, which was supported by all the others.
for Susan's prompt at What's Going On - a Weekend with Friends
