poemimage

We saw the

Haunted expression

On her thin, young face,

Digging out books

Half-buried in the rubble

Of her neighbourhood.

Who did she lose?

We saw

News flashes from Ferguson,

Reviving memories

Of roots & branches in

Martin Luther King’s

Cascading & thunderous

 Vision of Love. 

We discover books as

Symbolic:

Meaningful as Old Ideas & New Ideas,

Meaningful in texture and weight,

Fluttering like birds, singing or calling

Your name, her name.

We listened

To the bulletins from Palestine,

Remembering Martin Luther King’s

Historical analysis/ lack of paralysis,

A prophetic

Vision of Peace.

Pages lay motionless in the sun-drenched wind,

Their script fading to a whisper.

Heat and humidity envelop Little Dixie,

Chains click and rattle like ghosts,

An officer of the law/ empties his weapon/ into an unarmed man,

What has been done cannot be undone.

Plantation windows shutter shut,

She trembles, avoiding shards of glass.

The road is steep, leading to the fields,

Flowing with vanished olive groves.

She wears a paper-thin dress against danger from the sky.

“The arc of the moral universe is long

But it bends towards justice.”

The future rumbles

Like distant thunder,

Reverberating

Within

A Vision of Justice.

She cups her hands,

Alabaster stars radiate,

In the cauldron,

Of an obsidian void.

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The photograph of the Palestinian girl climbing over the rubble collecting her books was uncredited. The photographer of Martin Luther King is unknown to me. Upon discovery I will post the information. I do not own the rights to the original images. I have created new works for purposes of juxtaposition and commentary under fair use provisions.

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