UPDATE: I recently submitted this poem to Wildsound where professional artists and readers perform various works of art. I value 'hearing' a poem and believe it aids our interpretation. I, however, am not 'gifted' in the area of reading, so I have sought out those who are. If you would like to 'hear' The Colored Robe of Death interpreted through the spoken word, then click one of the links below (one will take you to youtube, the other to the Wildsound web page, on which the poem is also visible.
I hope you enjoy.
The Colored Robe of Death
About the Poem:
I crafted this poem in the wake of a long week of unrest, chaos and death related to the killing of the young African American gentleman, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. The poem is not designed to make any political statement. Rather, it is simply, an expression from my heart that is only illustrative of my own perspective.
The poem’s thrust is a ‘prayer’ which decries
our own lack of sight (our blindness to prejudice, the fears that drive them
and the desires they hide). The poem’s
ultimate hope is in God who creates, recreates and calls us to community within
the midst of vast diversity and difference.
The poem briefly explores the themes of fear, racial
divide, the nature of community fractures, the deep longing to be whole and our
desire to be connected to others in a meaningful way. It briefly accentuates and hopes for unity
across division and the wholeness that ensues.
When loosed fear hues the fabric
Which weaves the colored robe of death
Known life is thinned;
She’s gaunt;
She’s startled;
Fear carpets like hairs erected
Upon the neck
Of all creation
Against the breath
Of bitter cringe.
Taut fear now grips the trigger
Piercing through
One so adorned.
Moans wail amidst
A people cloaked.
In
The Colored Robe of Death;
Aloft! Grief’s towered
belfry
Weeps a tune toward heaven’s shore:
This
colored robe of death
To
our peril long ignored,
Has
hewn a fear-borne fabric
Adorned
by they beyond a tone adored.
Shadows all we who dare to know. Now know
The Colored Robe of Death;
Will
death find her true solace?
How
is requital gained?
Or is the deeply colored soul now lost?
The shadow’s breath ever present,
Beneath death’s dark hued stain!
Who reaps the one who reaps?
Who cries when colors smear?
Will a people pulse the tremor?
The exclaim of life lived, life feared!
One finger triggers power; exhausts another’s final
breath;
Mourning unearths swamped longing.
Seeping.
Sadly.
Slowly.
Surely. A country’s
Colored robe of death.
Exhausted.
Is this to be our final breath?
Death mocks the life of we adorned,
Haunting! She cries:
divided are we less whole.
O, to run with they who differ.
Robed colors hued in glory’s hands above.
O, to walk with they who falter.
Neath the weight of twisted love.
Borne deep beneath the wrapping;
Hues once danced the waltz of old
Rooted desires left longing
A friend whose hand to hold
To walk and journey with.
In
World bent; set to scold,
By we who faintly dare to know:
Life
is well lived in colored bloom!
Suffused!
Shaped all as one, we’re whole!
