POEM: Tea at 36,000 Feet

 

Tea at 36,000 Feet 

The
fold-down tray table
 
on
this

trans-continental
flight
 
from
Charlotte, NC,
 
to
Salt Lake City, UT,
 
is
full.
 
There
is still room,
 
however,
for
 
a
small
 
cup
of tea
 
in
the
 
front-
right section
 
of
the fold-down
 
table.
It is
 
premium
Bigelow,

100%

Ceylon
 
Tea,
served
 
in a
half-size,
 
Styrofoam,
Delta Airlines-brand,
 
Seattle’s Best
Coffee
 
cup.
The tea
 
was
delicious—
 
with
a little
 
creamer
and
 
a
little
 
sweetener—
and
 
the
flight
 
was
a little
 
choppy,
but
 
not bad.
Each
 
seat
was
 
full,
and
 
we
landed—
 
four
hours
 
later—
safely.
 
 
—Nicholas Patti

POEM: A Carolina Moon

A Carolina Moon
 
 
A
full moon
 
shines
brightly
 
in
the black
 
night
sky
 
outside
my

bedroom
window.
 
It
hangs high
 
over
a trove
 
of
trees
 
nearby
in this
 
apartment
complex.
 
No,
this is
 
not
a story
 
of
any
 
seedy
underbelly
 
of
life
 
in
the
 
working-
class,
 
in
the
 
New
South,
 
detailing
rogue
 
figures
and
 
outlaws
and
 
drugs
and
 
prostitution
and
 
all
that.
 
No,
this is

just
a
 
story
of
 
the
Carolina moon—
 
how
bright,
 
how
beautiful
 
above
the
 
darkened
trees.
 
It
is
 
hard
to
 
imagine
someone
 
escaping
this place—
 
a
slave

 

running
in the
 
underground
railroad
 
in
the
 
antebellum
South,
 
headed
North,
 
or
a
 
mass
migration

in
the
 
early
twentieth-
 
century,
away
 
from
old
 
Jim
Crow.
 
It
is
 
hard
to imagine,
 
even
if
 
entirely
understandable.
 
Why?
Simply
 
because
no
 
moon
shines
 
so
bright,
 
so
beautiful
 
in
the dark

night
sky
 
as
this
 
Carolina
moon
 
tonight.


—Nicholas Patti

Libraries, Culture, and Teacher Pay Raises Worth Paying For

Open letter to the editor of the Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC):


In response to "County Sends Sales Tax to Ballot" (June 18):

   As host city for Bank of America and Duke Energy, Charlotte sees some significant levels of capital flowing around town. So what does it mean to be poor, working class, and middle class here?

   Everyone—from the homeless to the 99% to the 1%—benefits from a better public library, for example. The book budget allows the library to stay current and relevant, establishing its basic value for the community. Expanded service to six days year-round means that Charlotte children have someplace positive and productive to go for an extra day each week—either with parents or when parents are away at work during the summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   All of us Charlotte and Mecklenburg residents deserve a better library, one more on the same scale as the highly concentrated wealth this city possesses.

   So the majority of Mecklenburg County Commissioners are asking the 99% to pay the bulk of it? It is not a perfect world. It is time for us all to step up, vote yes, and pay for what we need—and deserve.

 

—Nicholas Patti