Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Think (09/02/10)
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TITLE: From the Lawn of St. Mary's on Lincoln and King | Previous Challenge Entry
By william price
09/08/10 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
Walking
I remembered that
Streetlights whispered
Hey, black man, caution
Stay in my illumination
Traffic signals flashed yellow
Over and over
Yellow globes screamed
In muted warning
Swinging above intersections
Like silent sirens
Flashing and blinking
Again and again and again
A flash
A blink
I didn’t listen
I didn’t see
I didn’t …
Not much traffic
Some taxis sped by
Blurs of yellow
I turned a corner
Though
A street corner
A right off King
Street
I saw the sign
Don’t know why
I took a right
Home was straight
A new home
In a new town
In a new day
But
I was sad
And
I turned a corner
A right off King
Street
Unto Lincoln
Avenue
Not much noise
Just
Echoes of taxis
Whizzing up and down
King
The street
I walked down Lincoln
I didn’t listen
I didn’t see
I didn’t …
The moon was full
A yellowish glow
Its illuminating globe hung low
Over Lincoln
It didn’t blink
But would fade
In and out
As dark clouds
Fluttered by
Soaring with winds
Towing a storm
Thundering in distance
Firing like squadrons of muskets
In unison
Between the clouds
The moon’s reflected light
Silhouetted a cross
Atop the concrete steeple
Of St. Mary’s Cathedral
One minute there was a cross
The next
It was gone
From my sight
As the reflected light
From the moon in full
Was blocked from my eyes
By passing clouds on winds
Towing a storm
Of thundering cannons and firing muskets
In unison
Looking
Away
From the sky
The moon
And
The Cross
High in the night sky
That faded
In and out of my sight
I gazed down the Avenue
Of Lincoln
A beacon of red light flashed
Jazz
The neon sign read
Jazz
I could hear a sax
A soulful sax
It cried out my name
Black man, come here
I understand you
I am you
I am playing your song
Our song
Not from some perfumed book
Old white people sing
Written by somebody who’s been dead a hundred years
Think
Black man
Come back to me
Black man
Black man
Come back to me
I could hear the sax
After I turned the corner
Onto Lincoln from King
I listened
I saw
But
I didn’t …
Yet
Anyway
The wind whisked leaves
From across the street
Dead leaves
Like old hymns, to me at the time
From the lawn of St. Mary’s
One leaf blew into my hand
I caught it
It came from an Oak
Across the street
At
St. Mary’s
It was dead
So it seemed
Brown and crackled
But
I put it to my ear
Like a seashell
I heard my momma’s voice
From the Mississippi coast
Singing to me
From her grave
Singing about Jesus'
Freedom
She'd sing
The power of freedom
She’d sing
The cost of freedom
She’d sing
The appreciation of
Freedom
She’d sing
The blindness to freedom's color
She'd sing
Walking in freedom
She’d sing
Living freedom
She’d sing loud and proud
She was dead as the leaf I held
But her song was the same
Her voice
Alive
Her song was alive as the leaf was dead
I crossed the street
And stood under the steeple
And the Oak
And I looked up
And saw the cross
Its silhouette
In the moonlight
I stood in its shadow
And I wept
And knelt down
And picked up leaf after leaf
Heard song after song
All types and styles
All
Alive
All singing
Freedom
I turned around
On Lincoln
And walked back up to
King
I took a right towards home
On King Street
I could hear
I could see
I could think
I was free
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Well done.
This should be a winner!