Poem of the Week

BLACK RAIN

Light winked off in the Nation.

Out of dark night

Vacant of all covering,

Black rain began to fall.

From a terrace

Gorilla’s in the Mist music

Seeped through early morning.

A plumber thumbed the on switch,

A quiet whir recording

The first black drops of an early Spring storm.

On the chilled March pavement

A smiling African-American stumbled.

Was it you, Powell,

Who first thought

‘I’m going to be a movie star.

I’ll be famous?’

Was it your baton itching forward,

Hinting at the coming storm fury

Causing the second to follow suit

Unleashing it?

You could not know

The rain of blows

Were only the hurricane’s preamble.

Two metal batons

Rose, then fell.

Rose, then fell.

The syncopated cracking

Of fifty strokes

Drumming a black man’s back.

Boots thudded against bruised sides.

The steady rain fell harder

Diluting the black blood on the pavement.

Was God crying

Or just washing His hands?

Who is the suspect?

The cuffer or the cuffee?

The question drives the Nation’s fury

Into Hurricane Rodney.

Never did a cloudless night

Rain harder.