Like a chorus of angels singing slightly off key
In the chilly morning it builds as the sun rises.
Some mystery passes from one to the next, silent.
Just how, who can say? Their bodies lift in unison.
There is nothing awkward about them.  Poetry!
I was quite unprepared for the glorious spectacle.
Thousands.  Like watching a ballet of slow wing beats.
7000 miles they follow their heritage of millenniums;
And they rest upon the banks of this river.

The dank warm air stirs,
I hear sound echoing,

Moving towards me
Or am I moving towards it?

Dim light, tunnels of trees;
I am deep into the unfamiliar.

What is that sound
Vibrating through me?

Is it moving towards me,
Or am I moving into it?

An uneasiness moves
Up my body.  My blood

Is pumping, flushing me.
That sound engulfs me.

The echoes stir and I realize
It is my own heart.

3rd Ward, Houston, Texas; where the ancient layers
Exude the art of living.  Living cheek to jowl,

Hand to mouth, foot to road, bullet to head, head to heart.

Under these paved streets beats a heart of history
Mortared with ground bones, and sweat, and blood.

I call to you Soil teeming with our mothers and our fathers.
There is no rejoicing when I meet you, face-down,

And I am pushed and shoved down by hands of any color.

The leaf, dried, wrinkled;
A life aging, it is mine.
Greening gone forever.

A man found a spiderweb in the corner of the room.
He brushed it away with his handy kitchen broom,

And then he walked away.

Upon his return, which was actually quite soon,
Not only had the web reappear but it had mushroomed!

This only proved to make him madder.

But, now here is the moral of the story, which is true
Try as you might, no matter what you do,

You cannot remove the results of the problem
And allow the cause to stay.

You must get at the spider of the matter.

The unfortunate things take our Lives.
They storm the castle walls of Living,
And run like hordes throughout Life.
We, at times, are too lazy to Fight.

"This whole neighborhood
Bad, Baby.  We broken.
Ever week somebody get shot,
Right here!"