The sea of our denial...

Holding our heads up high

we look straight ahead

rather than beside.

We do not wish to see

or hear the faces in the crowd,

"hey, mister, are you for integration?"

as it echoes in the distance.

We choose instead to walk on by,

the one in rags,

the one with a smile

we do not see;

letting the wind

take them away.

Far away from our denial.

Have we forgotten how to live?

How to be?

No longer simplified as we wipe away our tear

of the homeless,

the aged,

the crippled,

the poor.

Have we wiped away the tear inside?
Succumbing to our fear inside?

Fooling no one, least of all ourselves,

as we pass on by,

mother or father,

sister or brother,

son or daughter.

We walk on by pretending not to see,

pretending not to hear the voice of segregation,

"But the real estate value will go up with the Judge's decision."

The Promised Land it was echoed long ago,

yet, the promised land for who?

History we have known.

History we have seen

and the picture on the wall

is no painting for the ones

living in the shadows

of this sea of denial.

And in my dreams

And in my sleep,

I awake to the fragments torn from the beaches of my life.

And when the ocean waves rifle to shore

I wonder if we, this time,

will once again turn our backs

and forget the ones we left behind

or will we choose instead,

to build a bridge for everyone to climb.

And I,

alone in the darkness

in search of the comfort I wish to find,

still can hear the salt water at night

crying out to the pebbles washed ashore

willing them to fight.

Crying out to the pebbles left behind

and I wonder if these rough edges

will ever be polished into more.