Dennis Brutus: Entropy Of Respect Poem by R.A. Burleigh

When I was eighteen and madly in love with a hundred images
They were beating you until you could not stand
When I was nineteen and overjoyed with Willa Cather and Scott Fitzgerald
They were humiliating you and chasing you into corners

How can I convey the disgust that covers all of me like falling rain
I can only sing to you a Baptist song from my youth
(I rise with what I believe would be a small choir of my friends)
Please hear our hope: please feel that small sections of the earth still shakes

This is my father's world and to my listening ears all nature sings
And round me rings the music of the spheres; this is my father's world

We shall over come, we shall over come, we shall over come some day
Oh deep in our hearts We do believe that we shall over come some day

If I bow my head now, too, late
If I ask others to bow their heads, too late
Please hear us in the other world, please know
That our children are better because of you


RAB