Poem by Jane Stembridge

MRS. HAMER

The
revolutionary
element remained
intact:
they
simply
stood.
She said
"No, sir,
     (for emphasis)
we didn't come
for no two
seats"

since
all of us
is tired.

Copyright © 1966 and 1968 by Jane Stembridge.

[Mrs Fanny Lou Hamer, from sharecropper on the Sunflower (!) Plantation in Ruleville, Mississippi, to freedom fighter and to the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1964, where the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was eventually offered a token two seats — which they refused. (Sunflower was Jim Eastland's family plantation.)]

THE CHILDREN

Copyright © by Jane Stembridge.

AUTOMATION

Copyright © by Jane Stembridge.

THE FLUTE
for Bob

Copyright © by Jane Stembridge.

ABOUT JESUS (who walked around a lot and listened carefully)

Jesus walked around a lot
where people
were

and listened
carefully

to everything they said
because

he thought
they had a lot to say

They said
There wasn't any food.
They said
Their kids was sick a lot.
They said
they needed help
and Jesus listened
carefully,

and after he had listened
carefully
he said: if peoples
     got together
     it wouldn't be
     so hard.

He said
that maybe they could
change the world
so children wouldn't starve.

And after
he had finished saying that

he got some food
so they could eat

and then
he walked on down the road

to where
some other peoples lived

and stayed with them
and listened very carefully

again.

That
is what he did.

He told the truth
about the rich

and listened
to the poor.

And then
the people
who ran the country
killed him.

It happens
all the time.

Copyright © by Jane Stembridge.

[This poem appeared in the Bulletin of the Young Christian Students, November 1965.]


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