January 2018
Here's a poem to commemorate Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. King was 26 and a new minister in town when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the bus. The story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott continues to inspire. The poem is a golden shovel. https://www.sylviacavanaugh.com
After a Long Day, Rosa Rests on the Mountain Top
“King pointed to the mountain top and we ran up”
-from the song, Glory, in the movie Selma
Responding to the quiet fortitude of her struggle, a King
said Walk for 381 inclement days. She pointed
the path in resting, catapulted herself from invisible to
visible. The police, the southern traditions, the
Jim Crow festers in fetid cesspool beneath the mountain
while those who hard-climb to at last reach the top
rejoice in proclaiming oneness with the stars and
sometimes weep to view the world so vast. Eons ago we
stepped onto golden grasses, danced for ancestors and ran
as one in and out of Africa. Rosa sits down and people rise up.
“King pointed to the mountain top and we ran up”
-from the song, Glory, in the movie Selma
Responding to the quiet fortitude of her struggle, a King
said Walk for 381 inclement days. She pointed
the path in resting, catapulted herself from invisible to
visible. The police, the southern traditions, the
Jim Crow festers in fetid cesspool beneath the mountain
while those who hard-climb to at last reach the top
rejoice in proclaiming oneness with the stars and
sometimes weep to view the world so vast. Eons ago we
stepped onto golden grasses, danced for ancestors and ran
as one in and out of Africa. Rosa sits down and people rise up.
© 2018 Sylvia Cavanaugh
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