Civil Rights Warrior Poetry of John Dewey Tircuit Part One: Watching the Border

Civil Rights Warrior Poetry of John Dewey Tircuit Part One: Watching the Border 

By David Tircuit, L.Ac.

My father John Dewey Tircuit was an activist involved in the civil rights struggle in the 1960s and 70s.  In that fight he was a front line combatant, and, like so many idealistic, energetic young black men of his era, he died young.  He was 31 at his passing, when I was 11 years old.  Shortly before his death he wrote a book of poetry.  In the tradition of the warrior poet he hand penned and hand illustrated the book titled, Watching the Border.  It communicates his feelings for the struggle as he lived it.  He lies in rest beneath a tree I planted for him in Grass Valley, California.  His only other monument is his name on a government list of known insurgents.  The sentiment expressed in his writings is relevant to the current situation in this country so I will present several pieces of his work in this blog series.

“March 1976”

I saw it would be

a dangerous spring.

risk sprouted with my flowers

then weeds took the garden.

my flower pots filled

with frozen questions

from the winter.

Last week was filled with ashes.

Some were and some were not

some nonspecific memories

and some of them were reminding me, and

some denying afterlife, and

some saying

live these taken-for-granted

days 

like they deserve.

Spring was saying: Pay Attention

Cover Art for Watching the Border Collection of Poetry Drawn by John Dewey Tircuit

“Man-Man meets the Stern Gang”

Suggesting that the meaning's

been rehearsed

out of our disagreements

only adds to the noise.

The Stern Gang is stubborn

in its amnesia,

dumb to its repetitions,

"if the nigger would just listen."