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Black Men: Vietnam Post-Mortem
By Beverly Fields Burnette Where
did all the black men go?
I
somehow fail to find
the
rest who marched with Dr. King,
and
stood in picket lines.
Where
did my brothers disappear,
My
quandary stirs a tear,
for I
recall with guns and tanks,
their
faces, black, austere.
Where
did they go~ the brothers,
the
uncles, dads, the lovers?
I see
their hole gape squarely
in the
circle of white “others.”
Snatched from their frat lines, meal lines, books,
they
went to Asia-land
retreating from their folks and fears
to
march on foreign sands.
I look
about America:
their
absence, a “black hole.”
I seek
some word of their demise, but
the
story’s still untold.
For
revelation of their plight
now
that a score, and more is spent,
consult the scholars’ history books
to get
a partial hint.
Some
made it to the very top.
Some
wrote a book or two.
Some
conquered odds and dreamed The Dream
and
got what they were due.
A
glance beneath the ghetto post
or in
the county jail
is
where some others ended up
when
life’s great plan grew stale.
Some
brothers flash to wartime scenes
and
pace the world confused,
while
others stalk, stake out and stare
and
prove they’re not diffused.
An
autumn stroll through Arlington
will
find some still in line~
or
look in country church yards
beneath a birch or pine.
Some
names you’ll find on slabs of stone
That
scream beyond the grave.
Reach
out and touch the names inscribed;
recall
the strong, the brave.
Their
hole in our society
is
evident and plain.
The
unborn that they were to bear
are
left no soul nor name.
Our
outward wailing now has ceased,
but
everywhere we see
their
vacancy within our sight,
their
missed intensity.
They
were to be our great black hope,
strong-minded, post-degreed.
Another tragic waste of race,
regardless of the deed.
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