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Robert Gibbons
THE PRIEST AND THE POET
The long road to destiny is filled with peril and shock Saul changed his name to Paul, Walking a Damascus road to persecute Christians, He was struck by alight Light is here, it is internal It shines, though sometimes we feel dimmed There are things one must experience and see Odysseus had to god own into Hades to see his mother Margaret Atwood communes with the dead The spirits of ourancestors are always around Charles Lwanga the little boy from Uganda Refused to doubt himself Though he came from the bush The king wanted no prayer in the royal court Lwanga prayed religiously He was burned alive for what he believed. Martyrdom isinevitable in some of our destinies Nomusa had 32 brothers and sisters She had to prove toher father She was worthy enoughto go on the great elephant hunt. Yet, we must seek the truth, Deep mysteries, subterfuge realities So that they may rise like jeweled spires Booker T. knew that road As he walked into destiny Martin's destiny, Malcolm's destiny, As Malcolm swam the historic Zam-Zam River Swimming allows us touse our entire body We must use our entire body like a human instrument The African Proverb,"pray on your feet." I don't think Fannie Lou Hamer Knew her words would walk into destiny when she said, "I am tired and sick of being tired." Or Rosa, but not only did she walk into destiny She sat in it, she was manacled to it. That road, that road, All roads do not lead to Rome The church building has failed Though architecture, barrelled ceiling, baptisteries, Doric columns are beautiful Beauty fades likeVirginia sandstone The church must address destiny John Locke said,"Everything is in a flux." We must keep flowing. When it comes down to pain, Misery, hysteria, poverty, psychosis, Color does not matter When it comes to survival Blood, liver, diabetes, HIV, crack Color does not matter That road, that road, To destiny Walk that road Your own road, Make it yours Walk it fully, that road, Color will not help you on that road Jim knew he needed Huck to survive That is why Martin said, "Black man and white man Jew and Gentile Protestant and Catholic" Because color does not matter That road is only for the strong We must see what our ancestors saw Beyond the physical, the spiritual, Even the metaphysical Martin said, "I have been to the mountaintop and I have seen the promised land." The mountaintop is an elevation, A rampart It is a mental uplift It is singing your way out of pain, It is I dream a world It is I wander as I wonder It is wounded in the house of a friend It is still I'll rise It is my grandma It is the gospel in my throat. It is the sanctity of this poem. It is that long road to destiny.
(Originally posted February
15, 2008)
A JIM CROW ROW (a tribute to Jesse B. Semple) Homage to James Langston Hughes Semple enrolls in Central Middle School in
Cleveland. His 7th grade teacher decides to divide the
class based on color. She did not know that one of her
students in that row had a history and would make
history. She called the row a Jim Crow row. She did not know
his great grand- father, Lewis Leary, fought with John Brown
at Harper's Ferry. She did not know his grandfather was
the famous abolitionist, Charles Langston. She did not
know that his uncle the legendary John Mercer Langston
would not become President of Howard University, and the
first African-American member of Congress from Virginia. She did
not know that the state of Oklahoma would eventually have a Langston
University named after this family. It was simple to accept his segregation,
but as you know though he is Jesse B. Semple, simple is just not good
enough. All she knew was: a row of tragic mulattoes a row of tomato/tomatoes a row of demarcation a row of gentrification a row of pro-choice a row from the Village voice a row with sounds of the tom-tom a row that followed Raymond's run a row with no emancipation a row with a proclamation a row in the tenderloins a row on a sharecropper's farm a row on the church pew a row of a darker hue don't you know it was a Jim Crow row (Originally posted, October 5 2008) To contact Robert Gibbons send an email to: robertgibbons54@gmail.com
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