CAN I WRITE OF FLOWERS (BLACK HISTORY TRIBUTE)

February 1, 2008

Can I Write of Flowers?

Must I write

of Emmett Till

problems plaguing

Black Folks

Still

Apartheid

Lynching

Reparations

Political elections

Race relations

Issues

making my heart implode

hoist responsibility

tenfold

on shoulders

tiny-

naïve, perhaps,

tossing knowledge

onto laps

where men come

to rest their head

bury sadness

inside beds

float rose petals

across blank pages

lick my lips

while trouble rages-

continents away

children shot down

while they play

but I write poetry

not real life

I’m a poet

and

that man’s wife

So can I write of flowers

please

ducklings

swans and

honey bees

Understand this

I hid from you

Poets

Writers

Historians, too

who suggest

my hand

examine time

face feared

annihilation

by mankind

with covered ears

I run away

shield my eyes

in hopes to stay

in this

velvet box,

where love

resides

between four

walls where cowards

hide

Octavia Butler

wrote of me

penned hyper-

sensi-

tivity

So can I write of

flowers please

sing this song

in sweet release

forsake war

choose inner peace

Emmett Till sleeps

in my bed

haunts me

with his swollen

head

missing eyes

I can’t forget

my pen bleeds tears

of silence yet

Someone else

must capture pain

spin the words

that often rain

truth across this continent

where evil breeds

our discontent

Flowers

boldly call my name

echo beauty with the same

fervor mixed in violent rage

that I can’t capture

on my page.

                                _ Jeanne Miller