MEN WITH DREAMS
I've raked this fossil-soil time and again
enriched by fathers of fathers
of laboring black men
who’s dreams grew, died and went fallow upon these southern hills
and now seem less substantial than a still…summer wind…
a minstrel sang the diaries of aging slaves
selling them wherever interest could be bought…
with a blue currency dyed in homage to captive thought
flowing from the veins of genius… but wasted on the plough
but those kernels of prodigy have been lost…and now…
unkept headstones mark the terminus of hope
scattered bones fossilize the reliquary of their fate
a queer trophy for men with dreams…
so I took and raised a fist-full of soil
clenching it’s unfulfilled pledge to my chest
its legacy shall see the dead avenged…through me…
as peaceful affirmations of their humanity...
and so slaves will be redeemed as men with dreams…
FIN
GALLERY
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