LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

on these American

      shores with flesh counted a

      reason to fear, absorbed by

      your need to deny this land

      is not home for us. how long

      must we endure fighting about

      who belongs, mocking pale faces

      dressed up with disobedient love

      and blind to every sacred colored

      face? when the next moon shines

      and you allow the broken world

      to make you think remember the

      ticking clocks across the nation

      speak the language of a thicker

      past, tales about our brown bent

      backs tilting toward equality where

      freedom begins!

      First Light

      do not be afraid of the

      haywire head of state

      who eats the innocent

      for breakfast with sinful

      tweets. shake the trembling

      from your dark skin while

      you march and pray to end

      the fatal days steering national

      life. don’t feel anxious about

      the pale light advancing, the

      mouths of his kind filled with

      flies, the lingering rhetoric of

      hate, the repugnant words taking

      your beloved country far from

      God. with each step taken on

      this dusty earth today recall the

      scent of sweeter times, the goodness

      sliding in the dark to crack open

      the sealed doors keeping peace

      and justice in prison. keep looking

      straight ahead for those who carry

      the familiar Cross that in this young

      democracy says the least of these like

      the stones beneath their tired feet will

      have a place to live, and speak.

      The Star

      our hearts are full of

      care for the dark skin

      kids who want to be free and

      are certain God comes down

      from the lynching tree. if only

      you knew the thousands of

      stories giving you a reason to

      see, to live without lament, and

      never smell the rotting wood

      that chokes life from us? if only

      you knew these bleeding hands, the

      sick pouring from our knotted throats,

      our bodies trampled by indefensible

      hate? if only you knew this bitter

      bread, the longing in our flattened

      bones, the kneeling with bowed

      heads at the altars where we weep

      long prayers rising to heaven for

      our young dead? if only you looked for

      the bright star unveiling the terrifying

      hoods worn by those dancing round

      hanging trees? then, you would walk

      the streets with us refusing a world

      bursting with hate for dark skin!

      The Paper Weight

      on the night table, I saw a stone

      with many names scribbled on

      it carried by her across the border,

      used for a paper weight for the scant

      letters from home. her thin hands

      often reached for those huddled words

      that gently massaged her aching heart

      and reminded her of another country

      far away. about once each week she

      laid awake at night trying to remember

      whether or not she wrote a letter about

      life in Alphabet City, or the feeling of

      living like a mural with the names of

      the dead painted on the side of a building

      people could only see from a distance. heavy

      rains on the Lower East Side always made

      her wildly weep about being confined to hiding

      and slowly perishing in a world that never cared

      to learn her name. on the bottom of the stone

      paper weight, she wrote the name of her murdered

      brother, and a tiny prayer that said, “Lord, help this

      world see we are human beings.”

      The Trousers

      I wore rags on the block

      for school, play and church,

      treated them like a block of

      ice held in hand on a hot day

      I thought would never dare let

      me down by melting. when

      kids laughed about the puddle

      jumping pant legs, I tried a

      first prayer objecting to the

      impermanence pleading with

      God to stunt my height and

      keep me in those nice blue

      trousers—God didn’t listen!

      I wanted to explain how it

      was forbidden to object to

      slacks with courage to last,

      that paid weekly visits to the

      candles in church, absorbed

      many lessons in school, and

      could run quickly through the

      streets reading books aloud. I

      wore those raggedy things till

      they were almost shorts, then

      took them to Orchard Beach

      for a swim, scorched them in

      the sun, and lost them at last

      in an apartment fire, burn. I

      was surprised to miss them

      when I found a bundle of ashes

      with

Скачать книгу