“He who was stoned. Not drugged. Stoned
by fascist-thug rocks as he sang
for the People in Peekskill
in a vicious attack that 58 years later
remains the unforgettable
shame of shames of American culture;
whose voice was the ground where
all colors of the rainbow warmed themselves
on the black fire of his affirmations;
who entered our pores, who never separated
a forward pass, a Shakespearean soliloquy
or a workers’ song from the revolutionary
transformation of all the world’s peoples;
who IS the Old Man River flowing
into countless other voices
singing, when I open my mouth, singing
when you open yours, singing the dream
he rendered palpable, and vast, and deep.”
Daily Dose of Poetry 