SONNET FOR A WORDLESS BLIND GODDESS

Happiness is a beautiful smiling word;
that soars the skies like a radiant black bird;
Culling ebony sheen downs from her sable breast,
to fluff and cushion the crib of her ever protective nest.

Murder and death are conjuring words too;
stalk and steal your children away from you.
And though young bodies lay in the streets and on bloody ground---
like trees chopped down when no one is around, justice hears no sound.

The long arch of justice has been bent backwards to times of old;
the streets replaced by the hanging trees; and the noose by a bullet hole.
We now understand the strange fruit stories of which the ancestors have always told;
for one by one, our little sheep are being justifiably culled from the extended family fold.

And while we should not and will not---substitute one tyranny for another,
we will and must strive to protect the seeded child of every sable mother.