Sympathy, American History, We Wear the Mask

One extra day of Black History Month this year, so I'll close it out with some thoughts and some poems:

Today's BHM trivia contest question at school pissed me off:
"Who killed Martin Luther King?"
Yes, knowing this person's name is knowing some history. But how many other, better things are there to know?

Forget his name, never speak it again, let it rot like his soul was rotten. Let's not sing the names of murderers. Let's close our fists around their syllables and plunge our hands deep in the mud and drown them.

And let's lift up the poems on our voices, because it's only one month until National Poetry Month! (formatting is funky--always is when I cut and paste from poets.org)
by Paul Laurence Dunbar:

Sympathy
I know what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass, And the river flows like a stream of glass; When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, And the faint perfume from its chalice steals-- I know what the caged bird feels! I know why the caged bird beats its wing Till its blood is red on the cruel bars; For he must fly back to his perch and cling When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars And they pulse again with a keener sting-- I know why he beats his wing! I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,-- When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings-- I know why the caged bird sings!

American History
by Michael S. Harper
Those four black girls blown up in that Alabama church remind me of five hundred middle passage blacks, in a net, under water in Charleston harbor so redcoats wouldn't find them. Can't find what you can't see can you?

..>

We Wear the Mask
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-- This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!