"We Ain't So Broken Yet"

 

On this day, April 4, 2026, the memory that carries both the trauma and the determination to persist against every effort to corrupt and paralyze our spirit and our hope is ever fresh and motivating.  On April 4, 1968, my intuitive gift had me in an extended depression. Nothing could remove the feeling that something devastating was going to happen, somewhere. I sat in my room in the Jesuit House of Studies in St. Louis, unable to focus on any of my schoolwork or other tasks. I had the radio playing, with only my intermittent attention given to the music and news. Just after dinner, I went into the reading room (adjoining the community TV room) to get a magazine that might distract me for a little while. That was when the announcement shattered my world and simultaneously confirmed what my intuition had been forewarning. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been shot and killed on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. I went to my room.  I wrote the poem, below. Then I laid down on my bed. I stayed there until the next morning. Then I went to a Jesuit classmate’s room and lay on his bed for most of the next day. There was a gathering planned in St. Louis to bring the wounded hearts into a public circle. The priests in charge of our community would not let me attend. So I returned to my bed.

 Somehow, I managed to effect a compromise.  I was allowed to offer a few remarks about King, his mission in life and his assassination, at the end of the community dinner. It was the first time in my life that I spoke publicly about my identity as a Black man in one white community after another. When I finished, Jesuit Brother “Zip” Zeir, looked at me, nodded; stood up and walked out of the dining room. He gave tacit permission for everyone else to leave. While they were leaving I played a song : Mahalia Jackson singing “Precious Lord.”

Evening News: St. Louis

 

willard wirtz, secretary of labor,

supports humphrey the news says

over in central illinois

the big muddy was reported

to crest safely under flood level

because of recent heavy rains

snow flurries with slight precipitation

were predicted for st. louis

johnson received an ovation

in st. patrick’s cathedral

a late bulletin announced

that martin l. king was shot

to death tonight on a balcony

in memphis

there were 3,238 vietcong

killed last month by allied forces

mrs. mabel burnham won $630

in the kxok easter egg contest

the pope still declines to make a statement

on birth control

 

                               4 april 1968

Five years later, I was once again in St. Louis, finishing my studies after my ordination, in 1972, to the priesthood. For the anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., not only was I able to attend a citywide commemoration, I was invited to read a poem for the event.  That poem speaks to us today.

5 Years Later: for Us  (For Martin)

 

1.

ain’t a soul amongst us

who don’t know for sure

LORD, LORD.  that we ain’t

in heaven yet

and our hell is standing still

 

did you hear him shout

don’t you get weary

don’t you get weary

 

2.

like as not we all old

folks   bent and twisted

from the common misery

shading our eyes with

crooked fingers   palm-

high to the sun

                          looking

out down the road  all day

who are we looking for

 

did you hear him shout

soon I will be done with

the troubles of the world,

with the troubles of the world

 

did you hear him children

did you

 

3.

so much time lost

since I heard him shout

since I heard him sing

since I heard him pray

since he died at supper

and they took him away from us

 

4.

some nights,  dark and quiet,  I get to nodding

my head  thinking and listening once more to

his big, spirit-filled voice urging us on

urging us on to victory

                                       then my hand starts

tapping on my knee and my eyes jerk open

straining to see him up there on his mountain

pointing out the dream   pointing out

                                                              so much

time lost    since I heard him shout

 

5.

sometimes the tears still come

sometimes I catch myself looking

out the window for a sign in the sky

or something clear and certain

 

and what I see is that wagon

that wagon pulled by them

mules   and all of us  all of

us  LORD.  pushed down into grief

where there are no words   stumbling

after

          hoping just to make it

 

6.

So much time lost

my faith is slow rumbling

like that wagon  and I’m

tired, LORD, LORD.  I’m

tired

          of trying to hear him

trying to forget him   I’m tired

of so much time lost    of quick

pains in my hands and knees

tired of the shooting flashes

in my head

                   LORD, LORD. we standing

here   it seems   where he left us

looking out at jordan

                                     waiting

for the signal to begin   waiting

for what

                I heard  him say   keep

a-moving on   I know I heard

him say it

 

7.

is he crying like we are now

over so much time lost

 

our tears seem to make the

jordan swell its banks

 

weariness don’t you stop

me   I heard him say it

LORD, LORD.    I heard him

shout

           so much time lost

we still got today

                              LORD.  DO

RIGHT, JESUS.   let us take

the plunge

                  we ain’t so

broken yet that we can’t

move a mighty distance more

 

8.

shout it  children   shout it

for him

make jordan shrink  and tremble

and move a mighty distance

more

 

like we heard him say

 

we still got today

shout it  children

shout it

[Both poems are published in The Sun Whispers Wait: New and Collected Poems. Brown Turtle Press. 2009]

A Bright New Dawn

Morning   noon and night  even on the demanded day

of rest

                 the wanderers arrive   exhausted and afraid

the soldiers see nothing  but pleasure in spitting fear

into their eyes

                            We sing the glory of this beaten down

place

          as if the hero who  was prophesized  

still rules our paths with care

                                                     But only

the most willfully blind can sing those songs

when the invaders claim our heartbeats 

as the rhythm with which to dance their control

Count them

                       each arrival must be captured

in the ledger from which our sustenance 

is calculated

                        So when he stood here

asking for shelter before she fell into

the road   covered with shame   trembling

to force our gaze away from her swollen

womb

               I stopped   for just long enough

to exhale my well-adapted mindless trance

and took them to the stable

ii.

We are the inheritors of dust

the cracked  dried branches of a tree

that has forgotten how to bear fruit

                                                          We

do not sing the promises shouted

so long ago

                          We are here only to discard

every thought of a bright new dawn

She could be heard everywhere

groaning out something more than struggle

It was not 

                   until the young men

crowded into the door   demanding

to see  a child

                         that I heard

how odd my breath was sounding

We went in

                    the young ones pushing

past me

              more hungry than the mules

and oxen in the stable

                                    falling against

each other

                 staring   staring  until frozen

with their long- unrequited hunger

They let their eyes  feast upon

the child

               resting in the hay

"Let Your Light Shine"

 

On July 15, 1872, Laura Rollins was born. And the lives of so many people were therefore blessed. Her death in 1977, shortly before her 104^th birthday, was also a blessing – her last, constant prayer was answered: “Please, Lord, let me come home.”  I know this because, when I visited her in the nursing home, she told me of her prayer. “I don’t think God loves me. I keep asking to go home, and I am still here…”  That went through me like a flash of lightning. My other grandmother (Carrie Wiley) had told my mother (her daughter) that sometimes people who are suffering from one sort of illness or another and who wanted to be relieved of that suffering were not able to be at rest – because their loved ones “were holding on to them too hard.”

I knew, standing there, listening to Laura Brown, as she held my hand, that I was most likely the one holding on to her – completely, and not just by the hand. She was my first and most significant instructor in the faith. When I was five years old, she put me in front of the faith community of Parks Chapel AME Church in Centerville, Illinois. I was there to recite a poem I had memorized for the Easter service. My immediate family was not part of the AME church; my parents having converted to Roman Catholicism (from the AME and Baptist traditions in the 1930s). But my paternal grandmother –“Ma Brown” – knew what many have not yet learned: faith should unite and bond us together. Socially and politically constructed barriers are not from God.  What was so ecumenical about my being put in front of that congregation was that my maternal grandmother, Carrie Wiley – “Motherdear” – bought me a tailored suit for the Easter occasion. So Catholic-Methodist-Baptist influences were on display.

So was my complete lack of filters. Even though I have been able to do theater, as an actor, director and instructor, ever since I was in high school, my introduction to public performance caused a moment of debilitating “stage fright.” I looked at that congregation and completely froze. My grandmother started prompting me, with the lines. I looked at her and said, “Please leave me alone. I am trying to button my coat.” Actually I was tugging at my coat out of extreme nervousness. She started laughing. The entire assembly joined in. I recited my poem and sat down.

Laura Brown never stopped prompting me. She never stopped intervening on my behalf when an occasional parental action caused other forms of emotional and psychological trauma. I learned to see, actually see, others by being her constant companion during visits all over East St. Louis, from the age of being a toddler to when my immediate family moved to Wisconsin in 1956.  She was also able to intervene during one of my most traumatic occurrences when I went into a physical meltdown, due to a migraine headache that no one was taking seriously. I started shouting and throwing dishes. She pulled me into a deep embrace, looked at me, put her hands on my shoulders and whispered. What she whispered did not matter. The calming embrace cleansed me of such behavior for the rest of my life. 

 She was my first history teacher, also. From when I was 3 years old and on, she would show me her collection of pictures and tell me stories. When my Aunt Leola (her daughter) died, her son took those pictures and wouldn't let me make copies. "They were my Mama's and you can't have them" is what he shouted at me. In his last days, with extreme dementia, he didn't remember me or the fact that his mother had died. And his stepchildren got rid of all of his things when he died. Those pictures went back to the 1880s. But I learned the lesson that all of us historians must learn:  All we have are our stories.

And in 1962, when I was to begin my journey on the path to priesthood, I visited her, in her apartment and survived a deep, intense and thorough inquisition.  When I had answered all of her concerns, she looked at me, and said, “I know you will be fine.” The cookies and lemonade were restorative.  [A few hours later, Carrie Wiley, a few blocks down the street in East St. Louis, conducted her own CIA interview. I passed that test, also. And the gingerbread and milk were sacramental, also.]

On the day of my ordination to the priesthood, I went to the nursing home that had been her place of confinement for six years. She had suffered a stroke on the morning of my return to the St. Louis area, to begin my studies in philosophy, in 1966.  My family took me straight to her hospital room that morning. And I visited her regularly, no matter where she was confined. On May 27, 1972, I knew I needed her blessing before I walked into the church for the public ritual. She held my hand.

She held my hand.  And she still does.

And she has taught me to “go and do likewise,” for the children God sends to me, in order for me to “do as I have been done by…..”

Shadow and Act

Every spiral through time forces us to look at when the circle started and do everything we can to learn how the ancestors – at least some of them – learned to survive the storm and to fill themselves with hope when the violence and despair nearly starved their souls.  This very old poem called me to be attentive. But, then, so do the times in which we find ourselves.

________________________________________________________________

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

            --Luke

___________________________________

14 April 1978/ “For the CUASA Recognition Night” 
(Creighton University African American Student Association)

The Visit: Elizabeth Knows

 

Not  yet comfortably crawling

                                                    my little

one was twisting and rolling across

the dirt   as if something was scratching

his sides

                     and nothing would calm

his skin    or mind

                                       I paced

mirroring his agitated strife

when

             at the crest across the way

they let themselves be known

 

She was steadied by his arm

as he guided them

                                        along the path

toward us

                        Oh   I had held

my hope near my throat

                                          wishing

over and over

                         to pray

                                      for what

I could not say

                         when she  that day

threw wonder into my heart

and caused  this one  to push against

me  as if he wanted to share

that wonder   without a sound

I could not breathe her

into my arms

                         I could only

tell my heart to wait

                                    And now

we cried and cried

                               while

the men stood   staring  silent

this time by choice

                                 no longer doubting

the fire that found us

                                   from the first

sound of the stranger’s song

 ii.

As we ate    the bits of bread

and fish  and figs would only

play at filling us  where we

were most hungry  for the end

 

And never could we question

the song heard only once

                                         and forever

 

There   on the pallet by the door

one had covered the space with

a fierce force

                         and both

of them were simply breathing

as if they brought each other

a peace

                we had not ever

known or felt                  

                               Which one had

found the other’s tiny hand

                                             we

would never know

                               only

certain that the need

was finally met

                                                                Christmas 2024

"And He Heard Me"

[Mary contemplates Joseph, after the Annunciation]

I.

They never knew what would pull us into whispers

when the learned men would ramble into clouds

of noise

                   but in the after

work we would share our wonder and doubts

why only some dreams could be shouted

and others shouted down

                                                 we knew   our work

was to grow  and clean  and cook  and wait

until

          the work caught us again

 

II.

Then

           he would linger on the road   be found

standing near the well   gently staring

as if his eyes could see my dreams

                                                               as clear

as the sun high and hot

                                              So they said   yes

and my will surrendered beyond my

counted breaths

                                we could stare now

without fear   and walk where

the breeze would lead

 

III.

Then  somehow

he knew to run into the room after my world

had dizzied me  and I fell

                                              into the disrupted dirt

I could not weep

                                I had sung

my promise and saw all the sky bleed red

and gold   and white

                                       He lifted me up  his eyes

lifted me up   his arms lifted me

up into

                a world never until then

conceived

 

He had heard me crying

                                              Yes

and

         nothing more would

matter  wherever my heart

would tremble

                            he would whisper

Yes

       and we could wait

the day

                                                                                     Christmas 2023

 

                                                                                   

"A Rock in a Weary Land: For Rock Hill Missionary Baptist Church"

 

Upon pain of losing fingers  hands  tongues eyes  or breath itself
                                                                                                           they still stole
the words  the pages  the scraps  the books  and hummed the story into
a stair of light upon which to climb
                                                                 not only up a mountain but into the clouds –
If those words can make you free   they said
                                                                             them words will sprout wings
upon our backs   and spark lightning in our fingers
                                                                                     Every chosen one
had to climb   walk  or crawl up the rock
                                                                    Yes  a mountain                                                                                                                                                                               sometimes
                    a hill  

                              maybe  even just a mound  beneath which the most sacred bones
were cherished
                              A Rock
 Moses went when summoned and returned  shouting   “Go,  Be Free”
                                                                                                                   A Rock
Elijah survived earthquake  fire and storm  to gain the stillness of complete love
at the pinnacle where all is revealed
                                                              A Rock
                                                                                 no,   a stone upon which
the wisest  bravest  oldest of the sojourners  would finally rest
at the crossroads  where hope met dread   where blindness was stunned
into sight
                    Ebenezer  the Rock was called
where help was offered and claimed   where the chosen and blessed were anointed
for the people   always the people
                                                                Samuel waited to see who would stand ready
to deliver God’s children and sing the songs that gladden our hearts even now
 
They knew that every child who climbed that rock  returned with words that gave
wings to dreams
                                 The child who stood on the mountain  who was dragged up the hill
spoke the word that we still stretch out our souls to hear and to hold
                                                                                                                   the Word
that causes us to tremble   tells us  yes this day   that if you climb the rock
it is to see a way to the Promise Land   go  and return
                                                                                            and guide us on

**********************************

(There are very, very few institutions in the Black community that can be honored for celebrating 152 years of existence. The fact that three formerly enslaved African American families gathered to pray together, without ceasing, is the most profound reason for confirming with word and deed this milestone celebration. October 6, 2023.)