23500
2
1968 (American Ways)
They shot Martin
last night on the balcony
-a motel in Memphis
One man if he was a man
with a sniper's rifle
and a secret, hateful smile
spawned a red tide,
triggered another Egyptian uprising
but no rapturous crossing
Rage exploded from the catacombs;
biblical resentments, shiploads sold
for chattel and the Jim Crow laws
After the marches, looting and riots
storms that raged for nine more weeks
an angry loner terminated
the dead president's brother
at mosquito range
in a hotel kitchen
preventing a Presidency
and stunning the nation,
jolting us against our nature
from our stubborn complacency
so that I, too, worried
to my 13-year old bones
when the shooting might stop
the campuses bloom in a season of learning
-students quit there barricades-
and like a peace song on the radio
our boys home from Vietnam
Still, my parents made their way
each morning to work
-I to grade school-
before the nation's evening ritual
turning the dial on the television
to see what dreams had died today
