Sonnet: Amazing Disgrace Poem by Richard St. Clair

The day Coretta Scott King was laid to rest
Four more Black churches were burned down
to the ground.
Parishioners were stunned: they stood around
The smoldering rubble there; who would have guessed
That such a shameful act could yet arise
In rural Alabama’s peaceful glades —
But hate will find a way, as it pervades
The minds in which ignorance never dies.

Yet tell me, which is better: To despise
The fools or pity them instead? Forgiveness
Seem so premature under duress
Such as the present, before the victims’ eyes
Are even dried: So how can one console
Their hurt and angry hearts and make them whole?