A Pall of Civic Sorrow shrouded Charleston like a mist;
Nine bronze coffins in the church nave waiting to be blessed.
Anger would be natural, doesn’t violence beget more?
Is forgiveness even possible? Many were unsure.
The congregation gathered to pray and understand
in the place the murders happened; a church built by freedmen’s hands.

As they prayed about forgiveness, one shrill voice disagreed.
It cursed the “white man’s Jesus” and all those who bend the knee.
Stop praying to your “*****’s god” and burn the city down;
all those fine homes of brick and wood that stand in Charleston town.

With Faith comes understanding, wisdom denied to the proud.
There will be no wave of violence here, the congregation vowed.
Lord Jesus was not Black or White; his was a brown tanned hide.
He was in chains and felt the lash on the very day he died.

Love is neither slave nor free, as it appears to me.
It is with Love we live and breathe and have true dignity.
So let the White and Black join hands across the Charleston span;
Then we will not be White or Black but each Americans.