"I'm On My Way..."

On April 14, 1978, while teaching at Creighton University, I wrote this poem for the Creighton University African American Student Association’s “Recognition Night.”  As I prepare to do a blessing for the Southern Illinois Black Pre-Commencement Ceremony this spring (May 6, 2017), I find that this poem still has some strength to share.  And the time is always appropriate to hear Mahalia Jackson declare, “I’m falling and rising, but I’m on my way....”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o7GnV30kJA&list=PL-W4ZdGkUNrnIQvye1F_w4E6f6DgbF0tM&index=66

Mark the eternally

Redeeming fact

                              when

the shadow suffocates

your hope

                     act

past the lightning terror

of the demon days

unremembered passage

from home to hell

shackled

mute of drum

fashioning banquets from

glacial wrongs

                            Eden was

redeemed in songs

an arthritic alien

hungering greed    ripped

families apart

                            the soul

was mastered by the shadow’s

need

to deny    and    shatter

to garble and grind

truth into ashes

the verdict of death:

make them blind

                                 transfer

the blanket of the crime

to the shaking shoulders

of the bent and broken

let the shadow haunt   and   terrify

let all decency be deprived

until   freedom   spoke   in

the raining of a gun

the delusion of the shadow

was seen as fog

stinging fear     retreated

and the sweat-tasting hymn

of jubilee

                   caught the rhythm

of the drum

in spite of death

still we come

                           we choose

to shed the curse laid

on our back

                        and when

the shadow threatens

                                           act