C. L. R. James (From Pages)

Ellis Island Men come here to see a statue With hungry masses at it I knee I come here to breathe again The simplicity of the allusion For I knew Moby Dick Was not why alone Our children were born Blemished like the rainbow So I come to see Where he had slept resisting to return While he decolonized my illusion I have seen the pen in its might How time was never fast enough To catch a metaphor in flight And yet always I fear more The impotence of the sword In a Proletariat hand So this is where they flocked you Among the impotent and dying Among the anxious and lying You who were our brightest son Boldest mind, Most fearless thinker of the time I wept too without the Federation But cannot find the courage to curse My own wrong I thought all games are wars You think all wars are games A means by which barbarity Prevents my integration With self and other self And the selves I become being civilized I saw the sea You invented the water cycle The thing that no man yet has ridden.