It was early June
and the black folks
were steady chopping
with heavy hoes
and the heat rolled
down out of the heavens
like a plague from Egyptland
calluses and sweat
When Jesus walked again
September was getting late
and the children pulled
the heavy white bags
but long ago
the white roman soldiers
had laid his brown body down
and nailed him to a tree
and raised him back up
a white man’s Jesus
but one little boy
who doubted he would live
to see his seventh birthday
raised his eyes up
upon the river
and saw a Black Jesus
shining in the sun
and found his strength
to reach the end of the row
to reach the end of the day
to reach the end of life
when a bullet cut down
his freedom and he laid
like a brown bodied Jesus
in the delta mud
And Jesus walked across
that big muddy river
and took the boy home.
About anthonyuplandpoetwatkins
https://www.goodreads.com/AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins
born
in Jackson, The United States
August 04, 1959
gender
male
website
http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?contributorI...
genre
Poetry, Historical Fiction
influences
James M. Lancaster, Brenda Black White, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, and Al Filreis
member since
March 2011
About this author
Publishers of Better than Starbucks: betterthanstarbucks.org
There is little about me that isn't already available at Facebook or Linkedin, or countless other places.
Poet, writer, construction worker, salesman, truck driver, climber into the attics of total strangers, father and husband, and all around one of the luckiest men on the planet.
My luck continued with a win in the June Goodreads Newsletter Contest! What an honor!
http://anthonyuplandpoetwatkins.wordp...
Additional Influences: Bob Dylan, William Faulkner, Barbara Kingsolver, Gloria Naylor, Eudora Welty
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