Years ago, when a friend of mine was sent to prison for growing marijuana, I joined FAMM, Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Because my friend, on a first-time offense, was given a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years. A story for another time, but I wanted to explain why I spent a summer tabling at the summer fairs, handing out literature for FAMM in the early 90's. Collecting signatures on a petition. And the reason that some folks, although they were very sympathetic to the cause of marijuana, balked at another one of FAMM's goals.
That goal was to lower the mandatory sentence for crack cocaine to the level of that for powder cocaine. "No," some said. "Crack is evil." And they would hand my pen back and walk away.
"But why," I asked some of them, "aren't we selling crack? I'm sure we could find some, make a mint. Why don't we do that?" Those folks, even more horror-stricken, would begin backing off, possibly wondering if they should call the police. But I would ask them then, "What would our lives be like, what would our chances in life have to be, for that to be a really good idea? Under what circumstances would selling crack cocaine seem like a viable economic plan?"
Nobody had an answer. Some folks decided to go ahead and sign. Others walked away. I don't have an answer either, but some of you might be wondering why I'm talking about crack cocaine and mandatory minimum sentencing on a day you might have been expecting a poem.
Because this poem, by Mary Oliver, took me back to that dusty summer at the fairs. A glimpse into another life. Another unimaginable economic plan.
Acid
In Jakarta,
among the vendors
of flowers and soft drinks,
I saw a child
with a hideous mouth,
begging,
and I knew the wound was made
for a way to stay alive.
What I gave him
wouldn't keep a dog alive.
What he gave me
from the brown coin
of his sweating face
was a look of cunning.
I carry it
like a bead of acid
to remember how,
once in a while,
you can creep out of your own life
and become someone else-
an explosion
in that nest of wires
we call the imagination.
I will never see him
again, I suppose.
But what of this rag,
this shadow
flung like a boy's body
into the walls
of my mind, bleeding
their sour taste-
insult and anger,
the great movers?
-- from 1985