JUSTICE & PEACE, A COMEDY, TRAGEDY AND FOLKLORE
I don’t know nuthin bout no Justice or no Peace.
Sounds like a couple in a Greek mythology. But, I do remember a stoop story, don’t know if it was a comedy or tragedy, more like a street romance.
See everybody, wanted to see Justice and Peace get together. Everybody said, if you don’t see Justice you ain’t gonna see Peace. Like them too had an inter-twined destiny. I knew Justice. She felt freaky like she was invisible in this town. Always working hard waiting long for these red nose folks to do the right thing. All that unfinished work made Justice weary. Been so long, Justice went from being a movement to praying to be a miracle. After seeing so many folks lose they shit and many folks lose themselves. People didn’t see Justice no more. Sure as shit didn’t see no Peace. Folks didn’t know where, why, or how Justice left town. She went about her way though leaving a void in the community that was missed…
I heard Justice wasn’t necessarily gone but went on a searchin’ for whatever it is she never ever saw before. Love. Justice went so long seeking Love. Almost forgot what she was looking for was called Peace. Justice had to holler and scream just to be reminded only to hear them red nose folks tell her “Shut Up and Keep The Peace”. “Peace?! Ahh” Justice remembered. If there is no Justice, there is no Peace. Well, whatever they was keeping wasn’t Peace cause Justice wasn’t served. And none of those folks, was getting a good days sleep so they had no common sense of Peace.
Justice started looking for Peace. She looked real hard like she was tryna find the recipe for hot water cornbread, using baking powder. When old folks know the truth is you need cornmeal to make it. She realized then she had the wrong ingredients for tryna find Peace. That even if Justice just wanted to taste Peace. She didn’t know what it tasted like, but wanted Peace to taste like home. Unfortunately, Justice didn’t know how to cook anything besides the Truth.
So Justice cut the stove on cooking up the truth for peace. While Justice was gone folks heated up and prepared to go to war with those red nose folks, who didn’t make Justice feel welcome in the first place. The red nose folks wasn’t too happy they could no longer milk folks of their hard work. When they started slaughtering folks well that just kicked the bucket of milk, cause the whole town became a herd escaping off their farm. Once on the road the people had a long journey towards freedom pastures…
When the chaos in the streets began and those mile long marches. The days got heavier and the nights caught on fire. Justice wasn’t there for any of it but she was watching. News folks said it was a peaceful protest but Justice knew it wasn’t suppose to be. Folks was in pain, the kind that doesn’t just cramp your feet, but buckles your heart and strains your soul. Still they continued to move with no Justice there and still no where was Peace.
While Justice searched, folks marched to nice neighborhoods, government buildings, grocery stores, corner stores, but no Justice nor Peace was there. Justice and Peace wasn’t on the menu of restaurants at the ice cream trucks or lingering in the public parks or parking lots. Justice and Peace wasn’t in the hospitals. Even if folks found Justice and Peace, the doctors wouldn’t be able to resuscitate the both of them. Nor were they in crime scenes, police stations, jails, holding cells or torturing sites. To be honest, folks didn’t even bother to look there. Everybody thought that’s the last place Justice and Peace would be. Which is why folks believe those places don’t got a purpose, if they don’t bring about Justice and Peace. So these folks had to destroy em. Some folks quit marching or never began in the first place, saying “Why should we walk or keep walking if Justice nor Peace don’t serve us too”? These folks felt left out. So People had to remind them, that Justice is nowhere to be seen but that when they find Justice and Peace, they will be together for ALL and only then can all of us be Free.
In the meantime, Justice was busy looking for Peace in places regular folks couldn’t dare to be. Justice asked the Moon who told em “Peace is a phase”. Like the moon we can be full of it but it never lasts only cycles. Justice took the Moons word until folks started howling “No Justice No Peace”. Under the stars and didn’t stop protesting not even into the new moon. Justice believed that maybe the Moon was right about the cycle, but the revolution cannot be phased away. Justice went on to the Sun. Sun said “Peace is light! When I light up the whole world and everybody’s skin feels touched and not ignored. That’s Peace”. The Sun bragged, “I’m creating Peace when I rise and fall”.
Justice absorbed the Sun’s light but didn’t find a peace. Instead, Justice found out about a lot of folks that had a shade on their skin the sun hardly burned but didn’t protected them neither. These folks always seemed to still be in the shade too. It seems like the sun didn’t know when it rose and when it fell that those people were getting burned. Justice went on watching the Moon and the Sun create their version of Peace. But knew that was not the Peace that Justice loved.
Justice marches forward in silence. Suddenly hearing dead folks utter for “Justice and Peace”. Justice realized she didn’t travel to all the cemeteries and sanctuaries. So she prayed in all the churches and asked all the ghosts “Where Peace at”? All the Ghost rose “How we suppose to know”? Justice crossed her arms and posed, “well all y’all is dead right? And ain’t you all suppose to be resting in peace”? A group of ghostly souls who were once our revolutionary leaders told Justice, “we haven’t rested since we were slain and laid. Matter of fact, we been working harder, tryna help folks get US some Justice and some Peace. Only then can we can we get that eternal sleep”. Justice fell to her knees, “All these folks dead and alive, tryna have a piece of me, but I ain’t nothing but an idea without Peace”.
While Justice surrendered, folks, somehow, someway, started having visions and stopped looking for Justice and Peace. Instead, they took over the land they marched on and together they envisioned what the land could look like if nothing not even their own happiness nor Justice and Peace were there to begin with…
They started gossiping, asking each other “What you think this land was suppose to be in the first place”… “well, besides, ours”…
None of them had one way answers…
Till those same folks started putting their hands in soil for the first time. Lord did they realize then how dirty and corroded this land was… Even the poorest farmer wouldn’t want to inherit it, because they could see nothing growing from the roots but blue weeds, rainbow colored blood and some poisonous vines…
The young folks disagreed and thought the best thing to do was to rip the roots out. Turnover the soil. To start imaging and believing this big ole land of ours could actually do what it promised, all over again. Or maybe even for the first time.
Over their movement, old folks got off their comfy couch and helped their young-ins burn it all. For the elders didn’t see nothing but bad spirits and memories. So everybody dug deeper holes, sowed better seeds and water that big ole land that was once free. They did all the rebuilding without knowing of what ever happened to Justice and Peace.
Can you imagine how long that took? And the people too. A lot folks was lost — workers and landowners, employees and employers, servants and kings. What was found was treasures of differences, even then no one became attached to their hierarchy or history. In all that time, seemed like they was building something more monumental than Pyramids or dat big Eiffel Tower. As that land changed, everyone and everything seemed to showed up but still nobody saw Justice and Peace.
The people started building with Anger, Faith, Hope, Determination and Love. The people who only built with Hate had started to feel useless like they had nothing to construct with.
It was when the kicked soil started kicking a brand new leaf of an olive tree. That Justice just a statue on her knees suddenly felt the ground raise her to her feet. The soul of humanity poured back into her body. For the first time in a while Justice stood up for something… Heart broken as ever not having found Peace, Justice was surprised to find many new loves. Them tools, Anger, Faith, Hope, Determination and Love. The red nose folks tried to stop all the rest of their hate from being ripped out. Piled up onto all the many things they done wrong. Folks stopped working watching them desperately grab onto their evil mementos. The red nose folks cried so hard it rained for a month. After that folks saw the Sun bless the Land and the Moon break its old cycle. Only then did Justice began to strut out of the darkness of those red nose folks’ underworld.
When those good folks saw Justice step on their land they showed those red nose folks Joy and Empathy. That was the happiness nobody never knew before, because all them folks had was pain inside them. Now they seen Justice, but wondered where was Peace?
Surrounded and embraced by the people, Justice almost forgot the feeling of not having the love of Peace. Instead, Justice felt a strange feeling in herself, the scale she carried had balanced the weight of love and hate. The laws she held were weightless, feeling like the freedom of strong cool air. The people wanted Justice to begin to fulfilling her purpose by keeping people just, equal, safe and alive. A warm of gratitude made Justice smile and close her eyes ready to serve them, opening them for the first time it seems Justice was no longer blind or looking incomplete. She was longer hiding herself in threads, she was wearing nothing but but her heart. Her feet were no longer strapped in sandals. Her walk allowed her to sway like Lady Liberty, but it was that first gaze that was love at first sight. In her eyes was the faces of good folks, the new land folks built and that’s when Justice saw Peace for the very first time.
Peace didn’t need no introduction. Peace walked through the crowd. Not only on two feet, but he showed off sometimes on all fours. When Peace spoke folks saw he had gills and when he reached out its hand, wings. Peace was a conversationalist, loved to talk, but was mighty good listener. Peace had emotions that often times Justice didn’t give up. Peace was like water from the smallest stream, gathering into the largest rivers, flowing into the biggest oceans. Peace was small but growing bigger more open. Peace was a broken at first, just a branch from that olive tree, then grew into a Palmetto, then a Redwoods, a whole forest and swamp. Justice was just happy Peace exist. That even when her job of keeping people safe and alive got tough she had Peace to hold her. After folks got used to Justice and Peace around, Liberty and Freedom came to town.
When Justice and Peace were finally together, folks started celebrating singing hymns of a place they once called, “America”.
Justice and Peace walked across every corner and crevice of the land and the two were never seen again, but everybody knew they was around and could never be separated cause they was each other’s equals. Everybody know without Justice there’s no Peace.
I guess it’s both a comedy and tragedy.
The tragedy was the good folks who wanted Justice and the red nose folks who thought they could keep Peace had to go to war. The comedy was neither one knew nuthin about Justice nor Peace in the first place. In the end, it’s all a love story cause everybody wanted to see Justice be together with Peace.
Now Folks don’t say, “No Justice, No Peace” no more. That was way back then. Naw, they say Justice & Peace. That’s what we call this place. Times change. Time changes.
