Maybe This Was Harder than I Thought

January 22, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Nationality and Race/Lunar New Year in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, which this year is celebrated on January 20^th, and the Lunar, or Chinese New Year, which this year is celebrated on January 25^th.

I welcome comments on my poems at http://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A poem for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday about the sorrow he might feel looking at the state of race relations today:

Maybe this was harder than I thought.

And, believe me, I knew it would be hard!

Race remains a flag, a wall, a card

That all sides play to stir up base support.

If love and justice were the ends I sought,

Neither was achieved. The rosiest bard,

Looking at black children bleak and scarred,

Understanding what our struggles wrought,

The jails packed with blacks, the gangs, the guns,

Hatred hovering hawk-like over Heaven,

Each bias fanned by electronic winds,

Rage bubbling over, would not sing of joy.

Knowing this, the truth that stings and stuns,

In sorrow I survey the burnt-out ruin,

Needing faith to walk across our sins,

Great with hope no future can destroy.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/mayb19.html. For more poems for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/martinlutherkingpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday/Lunar New Year

1/20: Maybe Dreams Cannot Come True, but They

1/21: Might Not Racism Cut Both Ways

1/22: Maybe This Was Harder than I Thought