DIAMONDS AND GOLD

As a naive grad student 
crawling toward my PHD
during the turbulent 60's,
I was torn  between my desire
to tell students about great writers
and communicate my distress
over the Vietnam war.

 Young and unattached,
I noticed young women like Emmeline,
in my class as they chitter-chattered 
with friends about marriage and weddings.
And about rings. 
After one class just before midterms
I focused on Emmaline's
fat engagement ring 
and queried if she knew
where that stone came from.

 A quizzical look appeared on her face:
" It came from Maxwell's Jeweler's. 
My Uncle owns it." But I persisted:
"Where did the diamond come from?
Taken aback, she said:
"I don't know. It came from where 
all diamonds come from." 

 I wanted her to know about 
South African mines, 
mostly gold and diamonds 
deep in the bowels of the earth
where these men slaved
for ten months a year,
in horrid conditions, 
paid only a pittance, released
to their families two months a year,
trapped there for life times. 

 I harangued the poor girl
about the miners and their families
and their pain and suffering,
said it was immoral
to wear blood diamonds
and tarnished gold. 
You are supporting
the mine owners, evil men
equivalent to slave owners. 

 Emmeline began to sob.
I apologized, realized
what I had triggered.

The other young ladies
threw daggers at me.
I half expected to encounter
a raging parent soon.  

Years later, when I got married,
my wife and I exchanged 
her first wedding ring
for a couple of simple gold bands 
from the jeweler's "divorce box." 

 I don't think Emmeline took
her ring back and exchanged 
it for a plain gold band. 
Instead waltzed down the aisle 
in her custom-made wedding dress.

 I am an old man now.
South Africa is far away,  
I read recently the conditions
in the mines are much more humane. 
Emmeline now old enough 
to bequeath her ring to a daughter.

Originally published in Everscribe Magazine