September 02, 2008

Vicky Carter

(c) 1994

In Tennessee Vicky Carter teaches god and the 3-R’s
to second graders at Jackson Christian School.
Vicky Carter relentlessly raises funds
for the Soldiers’ Angel Foundation. 
She signs hundreds of cards each week.
A Funeral Director in Bakersfield,
Vicky Carter buries the dead with dignity.
She wipes the brow of the weary and prays for the sick. 
Vicky Carter tells me that life is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.

Vicky Carter manages the Wilmington Mellon Bank
and still finds time to volunteer with the YMCA
Black Achiever program. Vicky Carter is the mother
of a star USC Trojan basketball player.
When I am quiet, I can hear her cheer.
In 1971, Vicky Carter changed her name to Vicky Nguyen.
Some Vicky Carter will always remain inside her.
Vicky Carter transcends race, religion, geography
and time. She is almost always female.

Vicky Carter is a quantum leap in our evolution,
an exponential growth, an algebraic formula
I struggle to become. Vicky Carter
is a Tissue Establishment Registration Coordinator
for the Human Tissue Staff at the Rockville office
of Blood Research and Review. She oversees
the Keele University Center for Applied
Entomology and Parasitology in the U.K.
I would probably be dead, if it weren’t for Vicky Carter.
Some generous quality, some selflessness
motivates her to eradicate suffering.
I believe there is a little Vicky Carter in each of us.

Vicky Carter is a Florida Real Estate Lawyer
and a Realtor in Joplin. Vicky Carter crossed America
on wagon train. She died in Portland in 1898
survived by two sons and six granddaughters,
all carrying Vicky Carter DNA.
Vicky Carter knows all there is to know
about turning a house into a home, about the cycle
of birth and death. To live like Vicky Carter
is neither easy nor difficult.

Vicky Carter appeared to me in a dream.
She asked What benefit can be derived
from distinctions and separations?
All I need can be found in Vicky Carter.
Vicky Carter can be found in me.

1 comment:

aintshakespeare said...

I really, really like that poem.