Except for the month of April, this blog is generally in the business of history. But in this month
dedicated to poetry, things that
matter can get short shrift. Take
today. It is the 55th anniversary
of a gut-wrenching occasion that left a scar on the nation
and on many of our hearts.
It was on April 4, 1968 that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned
down as he stood on the balcony
of a Memphis motel.
He was in the city to complete some unfinished business—a march in support of striking garbage collectors, a follow up to an earlier march where violence
had broken out as younger marchers began smashing shop windows. He returned against the unanimous advice
of his closest associates. But he
felt he had a duty to complete the march in peace.
The rainy night before, Dr. King
went to a local church that was packed to the rafters to hear him. It was there that to a strangely hushed crowd
he delivered his own elegy:
… I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some
difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to
the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long
life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just
want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve
looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But
I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised
land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing
any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
The night of the killing riots erupted around the nation. Black
rage boiled on to the streets. In Chicago the West Side burned. White America cowered in front of their
television sets in fear and horror.
At tiny Shimer College, I locked myself in a closet and cried for what
seemed like hours.
We’ll leave it to the pathetic conspiracy theorists to argue about who
to pin the rap on. It really doesn’t matter if we know the name
attached to the finger on the trigger, or the names of who may
have paid or abetted, or even of those who just winked. A festering boil of racism killed Dr. King in the forlorn
hope that they could kill his dream and the march to justice.
Traumatic events like this are often
processed through poetry. Think of Walt Whitman’s elegies to fallen Lincoln—O
Captain, My Captain and When
Lilacs Last in the Door Yard Bloomed.
Today, let’s remember through the
eyes of two Black women.
Nordette
Adams grew up in New Orleans. After a varied
career as a journalist, government public relations person, ghost writer, technical writer, and
writer and producer of documentaries, she is concentrating on
her creative writing and poetry.
Remembering A Life
I
remember him in the misted vision of toddler years
and
again in girlhood, the booming voice on TV,
someone
grown-ups talked about, eyelids flapped wide.
Elders
huddled ’round the screen enraptured,
in
fear for him, in awe.
I
remember him.
His
words swept the land, singing our passion.
Dogs
growled in streets. Men in sheets.
Police
battering my people. (Water, a weapon.)
Yet
my people would rejoice ... And mourn.
I
remember him, a fearsome warrior crying peace,
a
man—blemished by clay, the stain of sin as
any
other, calling on the Rock—
Death's
sickle on his coat tails,
yet
he spied glory.
Shall
we walk again and remember him,
not
as the Madison Aveners do,
but
in solitude and hope
with
acts of courage and compassion,
with
lives of greater scope
carving
fresh paths of righteousness?
I
remember.
—Nordette Adams
© Copyright January 2004, Nordette Adams
June Jordan was born in Harlem in 1936 and grew up in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant,
Poet, activist, teacher, and essayist,
she was a prolific, passionate, and influential voice for liberation. Jordan died
in 2002 but lived and wrote on the frontlines of American poetry with political vision and moral clarity.
In Memorium:
Martin Luther King Jr.
I
honey people
murder mercy U.S.A.
the milkland
turn to monsters teach
to kill to
violate pull down destroy
the weakly
freedom growing fruit
from being
born
America
tomorrow
yesterday rip rape
exacerbate
despoil disfigure
crazy
running threat the
deadly
thrall
appall
belief dispel
the wildlife
burn the breast
the onward
tongue
the outward
hand
deform the
normal rainy
riot
sunshine shelter wreck
of darkness
derogate
delimit
blank
explode
deprive
assassinate
and batten up
like bullets
fatten up
the raving
greed
reactivate a
springtime
terrorizing
death by men
by more
than you or
I can
STOP
II
They sleep
who know a regulated place
or pulse or
tide or changing sky
according to
some universal
stage
direction obvious
like
shorewashed shells
we share an
afternoon of mourning
in between
no next predictable
except for
wild reversal hearse rehearsal
bleach the
blacklong lunging
ritual of
fright insanity and more
deplorable
abortion
more and
more
—June Jordan
From Directed By Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (Port Townsend,
WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2005) © 2005 by The June M. Jordan Literary Trust.
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