Calm

In his daily search

for calm, peace, ease,

even happiness,

he dresses himself as a poet,

a spinner of yarns,

a writer of maybe’s,

a frail human with hopes.

Some people think he’s witty,

but he knows that 

just comes from good reading.

A few friends know him as kind,

and that one he accepts as true,

failing sometimes in the attempt,

but always trying.

Forgetting the frequent failures,

he simply does his daily work,

lives his life,

tries to give good to the world.

Oh, and he keeps in touch.

People know that he’s keeping it a hundred.

His friends like that.

Is There A Poem In All Of This?

While I might share your tears,

thinking, man, 400 years,

I’m too white 

to have that right,

too racially illiterate

to thoughtfully consider it,

and even though I care,

I’m insufficiently aware,

not properly awoke,

so I must think before I spoke.

I know when this anger’s done,

when provocateurs have had their fun,

then powerful white men will say,

okay, they’ve had their day,

so let’s gather all the facts,

then they’ll still refuse to act.

I just don’t know what to say,

all I know to do is pray,

knowing I’ll still fall far short

of lending full support,

just placing one more candle

on my hopeful, loving mantel,

certain I won’t live long enough to say,

“Ah, equality’s found it’s day.”