On the Levees of Time
ON THE LEVEES OF TIME…
(APROPOS WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE)
When the levees broke…when the levees broke…
When the levees broke…
When the levees broke the world awoke
From a submerged reality
Flowing beneath the bridge over trouble waters.
The copious tears of the domed encampment
Could not wipe away the fears
Nor cleanse the minds of lost hopes floating
In the midst of the mockery I see:
This land, this water, this ransacked America!
Shame is a white cloud reflected from the dark
Side of the moon;
Guilt seeks its own level; but the Lord said:
Vengeance is Mine…
Indeed to err is human; to forgive divine…
Mercy on we mere mortals!
When the levees broke…when the levees broke…
When the levees broke…
Stitches that bound the veil and scale of justice
Were ripped at the seam;
And it seemed that the bowels of hell
Loosened their pregnant flow of terror
And unseen evil revealed itself to an intoxicating world
Drunk with deception.
No receding water can was away the pain;
The level of grief remains.
Like a wrinkle in time, minds of survivors flood
With memories of Middle Passage Crossing;
deferred dreams of festering bloated bellies
Of the dreamers; dreamers of a new Diaspora;
Dreamers drifting on the rafts of new leanings
Indeed we shall rise again from the depths
Of hell’s waters;
Sail on the tides of new beginnings; no political anchors
Nor the barges of time
Can hold us in check or prohibit our rising.
At our soaked wake, we shall keep a ripened vigil;
The shadowed veil shall ever be rent.
All shall be naked before the world; truth revealing
Its self like a burning bush;
And we shall come over into a new dwelling: a city
Not made by hands of corruption.
And the Orleans of our beginnings here shall not fade
From these memories:
When the levees broke…when the levees broke…
When the levees broke.
Copyright © Millard Lowe | Year Posted 2015
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