Morning Song and Evening Walk

Tonite in need of you

and God

I move imperfect

through this ancient city.

Quiet. No one hears

No one feels the tears

of multitudes.

The silence thickens

I have lost the shore

of your kind seasons

who will hear my voice

nasal against distinguished

actors

O I am tired

of voices without sound

I will rest on this ground

full of mass hymns.

You have been here since I can remember Martin

from Selma to Montgomery from Watts to Chicago

from Nobel Peace Prize to Memphis, Tennessee.

Unmoved among the angles and corners

of aristocratic confusion.

It was a time to be born

forced forward a time

to wander inside drums

the good times with eyes like stars

and soldiers without medals or weapons

but honor, yes.

And you told us: the storm is rising against the

privileged minority of the earth, from which there is no

shelter in isolation or armament

and you told us: the storm will

not abate until a just distribution of the fruits of

the earth enables men (and women) everywhere to live

in dignity and human decency.

All summerlong it has rained

and the water rises in our throats

and all that we sing is rumored

forgotten.

Whom shall we call when this song comes of age?

And they came into the city carrying their fastings

in their eyes and the young 9-year-old Sudanese

boy said, "I want something to eat at nite a

place to sleep."

And they came into the city hands salivating guns,

and the young 9-year-old words snapped red

with vowels:

Mama mama Auntie auntie I dead I dead I deaddddd.

In our city of lost alphabets

where only our eyes strengthen the children

you spoke like Peter like John

you fisherman of tongues

untangling our wings

you inaugurated iron for our masks

exiled no one with your touch

and we felt the thunder in your hands.

We are soldiers in the army

we have to fight, although we have to cry.

We have to hold up the freedom banners

we have to hold it up until we die.

And you said we must keep going and we became

small miracles, pushed the wind down, entered

the slow bloodstream of America

surrounded streets and "reconcentradas," tuned

our legs against Olympic politicians elaborate cadavers

growing fat underneath western hats.

And we scraped the rust from old laws

went floor by floor window by window

and clean faces rose from the dust

became new brides and bridegrooms among change

men and women coming for their inheritance.

And you challenged us to catch up with our

own breaths to breathe in Latinos Asians Native Americans

Whites Blacks Gays Lesbians Muslims and Jews, to gather

up our rainbow-colored skins in peace and racial justice

as we try to answer your long-ago question: Is there

a nonviolent peacemaking army that can shut down

the Pentagon?

And you challenged us to breathe in Bernard Haring's words:

the materialistic growth—mania for

more and more production and more

and more markets for selling unnecessary

and even damaging products is a

sin against the generation to come

what shall we leave to them:

rubbish, atomic weapons numerous

enough to make the earth

uninhabitable, a poisoned

atmosphere, polluted water?

"Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful

thing compared to love in dreams," said a Russian writer.

Now I know at great cost Martin that as we burn

something moves out of the flames

(call it spirit or apparition)

till no fire or body or ash remain

we breathe out and smell the world again

Aye-Aye-Aye Ayo-Ayo-Ayo Ayeee-Ayeee-Ayeee

Amen men men men Awoman woman woman woman

Men men men Woman woman woman

Men men Woman woman

Men Woman

Womanmen.

Copyright Credit: Sonia Sanchez, "Morning Song and Evening Walk" from Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1999 by Sonia Sanchez. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts.

Source: Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems (Beacon Press, 1999)