masks {april 11, 2022}

In the news today, Philadelphia is the first major metropolitan area to reinstate indoor mask mandates as COVID-19 cases rise.

Big. Heavy. Sigh.

Paul Laurence Dunbar, was born on June 27, 1872, in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War. He began writing stories and verse when he was a child. He published his first poems at the age of 16 in a Dayton newspaper, and served as president of his high school's literary society. He became one of the first influential Black poets in American literature.

RiverScape MetroPark in downtown Dayton has a section dedicated to PLD, the Dunbar River Walk with a few of his poems placed along the path. One of the poems, "We Wear the Mask," is quite relevant for the time we are in, both pandemic and the continuing struggles for Black people.

We Wear the Mask

By Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

       We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

       We wear the mask!