Prelude
In the year 1998 in the southern United States a man of color was brutally murdered by people who committed this crime because they did not like the color of his skin. Over the years, these crimes of racial injustice have been perpetrated on innocent people many times. The frequency of these occurrences must not diminish the horror of each individual event. Men and women who crave honor and righteousness must join hands and hold the torch of justice into the night sky until it burns with white hot intensity and banishes the evil from our presence. I would ask the forgiveness of my black brothers and sisters for having the audacity to pen a poem about the black experience. Prehaps white people should not write such things. I can only say that this poem seemed to come from some very old part of my soul.
Africa !
Africa! Africa!
in my very bones
I can feel your
musty songs of
hallowed ancestral memory
ancient grit grinds
in my jaw as
I gaze upward
to Kilimanjaro and
feel congo blood storms
raging across my
beautiful ebony flesh
trapped in the new worlds
glass and steel
my soul strains like
some powerful beast
being called home
to prehistory itself
In my holy black vision
I have run naked
across Serengeti's Plain
my chest pounding with
life stuff
Africa! Africa!
beloved Mother
reach out your primordial
wisdom to this black child
beset with evil men
who revile my precious darkness
grant me your Grace and Wisdom
and keep me forever
in your bosom
Gareth Crispell (c) July 1998