In Memory of Mark Kostopoulos, 1954-1992
..
You fought death with your body
at the FDA barricades in 1988
their ivory tower indifference no match
for your open mouth.
Headband around your curls,
infected, in desperate combat
you shamed power and won.
You were the voice of life, a moral authority
challenging all who would let you die.
You flamed like a firecracker,
loud and beautiful
burning out into gray ash.
At your funeral 250 mourners blew whistles,
pounded drums, and held your portrait high
on Santa Monica Boulevard.
It’s twenty four years later.
I think of you
as June’s playful breezes
stir the flowering shrubs.
On this sunny ridge
everything that killed you is benign.
Swelling signals a bloom,
not an invasion.
A thrush is a bird fluting a tune,
not fur on your tongue.
Purple is a wood violet,
not a lesion.
Warrior–
you blew through me
onward to your destiny.
Until I met you
I didn’t know it was really possible
to change the world.
..
Peggy Turnbull is a poet, librarian, and member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. She enjoys hiking the ridges and swales on the western shore of Lake Michigan and is a fan of state parks and the Ice Age Trail.
Reblogged this on reubenwoolley.
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Way to go, Peggy! I never heard of this man until you wrote about him, what a maverick and hero.
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Thank you, Ingrid. I’m so glad that you are interested in Mark!
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Beautiful, moving.
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How kind of you to comment, Peter. Thank you!
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