"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]