Charles Kouri is playwright, lyricist and producer of two full-length musicals, REBEL and 24WORDS, which feature stories and original songs inspired by the Equal Rights Movement. The shows have been produced in Chicago and Washington D.C. and most recently performed at Steppenwolf, as part of the theater’s Lookout Series. He recently began writing poetry and is publishing 304-Days-With-3-Days-Missing, a series of 301 poems written during the pandemic. Charles is also a freelance journalist, marketing communications writer and author. He lives in Chicago.
this day
this whole day was raining
this whole day was cold
this whole day was drifting
this whole day said no
this whole day said stay away
but i could not shake its hold
i was waiting for tomorrow
looking out for more
but this long day just let-me-be and everyone i know
so someone wrote a story
someone wrote a song
there were people making time for people
they don’t even know
this day sure had a wisdom
made the most of rain and cold
the day became a wonder
now i’m sorry to see her go
the prints of a dance
taking a step-back
as the dust settles
from a cliff collapse
revealing three-hundred-and-thirteen-million-year-old
fossilized tracks
described in a cold, distant and detached
two shelled-egg-laying animals, passing
at different times
along the slope of a sand dune
upon a telescoping closer,
the prints express, paws in a primal dance
the distinct gait of tetrapods
four legs, step to prance, telling the story of ice-forming
as the norms, then gorges tore
into the unspoken for
and the sky tugged at the shores
raising tides for the deep to climb
fins to limbs,
as sharks roamed from the ocean floor
to meet the beasts upon the plains
to tear apart a fallen star
and set their prints with claws and pads
raptured in a primal dance