John Bazemore/AP
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John Bazemore/AP
People react during a rally to protest the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Ga.
The 25-year-old black man was shot and killed by two white men while he was out for a jog in February in Glynn County, Ga.
I am sorry that all I can do is write this poem
I am sorry that your life has become a metaphor:
a house being built, down the road,
He liked to mark its progress,
dream of building one himself,
Eyes shine through windows,
Like raccoons in the woods at night,
Their faces twisted, pink, and hot,
He knows these trees, and their strange fruit,
Of thee I sing.
after hatred's song is spilled
out into the streets
and across soft green lawns
it cannot be unsung
After bullet leaves chamber
it cannot be recalled
My heart rages for another mother's loss of her son
for the blindness
for the cover up
for the tears not enough to wet the graves
of so many lost for the sake of insanity:
a black babysitter caring for white children
a black professor opening his own front door
a young black woman sleeping in her own college lounge
a black teen knocking on a door to ask directions
his first words: Don't Be Afraid
a black boy jogging in the morning
There is an essential difference between running
and running for your life.
They are young men
simply going about their lives
Never, ever again, should a dream be deferred,
should a parent have to explain
Jim Crow still lives in the hearts and minds
of white men,
should a young man look over his shoulder
at a gun and run only to lose this race.
