“Growing Up Over Stone”

Kristin W. Davis, Washington DC, USA

Creators of Justice Award 2022 | First Prize: Poetry

The author, Kristin W. Davis, is a former journalist and holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Southern Maine, Stonecoast. Her poetry has appeared in Passager, THINK, What Rough Beast, the Bay to Ocean anthology, and the Split this Rock blog and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her brother was a resident at Willowbrook from 1962 until his death in 1971.

 Growing Up Over Stone

"
At the“Capitol Crawl,” March 12, 1990, Jennifer K, age 8, and

about 60 adults with disabilities climbed the steps to the U.S. Capitol

to demand the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

A seed nestles in soil, wedged against granite.

A sapling, stone as shelter, brace to grow against,

fuse to, not even a gust of breath between.

A girl parks her wheelchair at the foot of the marble

steps, lays belly down and wrenches herself upward

with her forearms, stair to stair, nose to stone.

When the pine grows taller than the stone, it twists

its trunk toward the water, creeps over the boulder,

sends out thin roots to knuckle into any crevice.

Up 82 steps to the U.S. Capitol, she exhales, sweats, asks

for water, demands the right to access a classroom,

a restaurant, a library. I’ll take all night if I have to.

A survivor leans against its obstacle, finds the place

where sunlight warms stone. No cloud or dusk

or bigger tree in leaf will keep it from being seen.

At a right angle over the boulder, the pine traps a layer

of matted soil and moss that gathers rain and mist,

then, speckled history beneath, bends again toward sky.