The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.
Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach,
I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach.
Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound,
You couldn’t even call out my name.
You were helpless and so was I,
But unfortunately throughout history
You’ve worn a badge of shame.
I say, the night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark
And the walls have been steep.
But today, voices of old spirit sound
Speak to us in words profound,
Across the years, across the centuries,
Across the oceans, and across the seas.
They say, draw near to one another,
Save your race.
You have been paid for in a distant place,
The old ones remind us that slavery’s chains
Have paid for our freedom again and again.
The night has been long,
The pit has been deep,
The night has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.
The hells we have lived through and live through still,
Have sharpened our senses and toughened our will.
The night has been long.
This morning I look through your anguish
Right down to your soul.
I know that with each other we can make ourselves whole.
I look through the posture and past your disguise,
And see your love for family in your big brown eyes.
I say, clap hands and let’s come together in this meeting ground,
I say, clap hands and let’s deal with each other with love,
I say, clap hands and let us get from the low road of indifference,
Clap hands, let us come together and reveal our hearts,
Let us come together and revise our spirits,
Let us come together and cleanse our souls,
Clap hands, let’s leave the preening
And stop impostering our own history.
Clap hands, call the spirits back from the ledge,
Clap hands, let us invite joy into our conversation,
Courtesy into our bedrooms,
Gentleness into our kitchen,
Care into our nursery.
The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain
We are a going-on people who will rise again.
And still we rise.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- For the Young Who Want To by Marge Piercy
- Old Homeless Man by Walter William Safar
- Владимир Британишский – В болотах севера Евразии
- The Highland Broach by William Wordsworth
- Владимир Маяковский – Пролетарка, пролетарий, заходите в планетарий
- Shivratri The Night Of Shiva While The Procession Passed At Ramesram
- Psalm 04 poem – John Milton poems
- Spring – The First Pastoral ; or Damon poem – Alexander Pope
- Poema II, “Pañuelos de La Alhambra” by Mara Romero Torres
- Reveille poem – A. E. Housman
- Анатолий Жигулин – О, Родина, в неярком блеске
- Elegy On An Australian Schoolboy poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Less Time poem – Andre Breton poems
- Eclogue VIII by Virgil
- The Twa Sisters poem – Andrew Lang poems
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).