From a dormitory window at Boston U.,
I saw the Marsh Chapel plaza fill with black,
as if rained on from a cloud of ink, hours after
a man who’d preached there was gunned down.
And so, an awful equity is imposed; it ties a band
of sympathy around people stilled to sadness by
the shootings in Dallas, and people shocked hopeless
by the Memphis gunman and his many bosses.
Six decades later, un-hyphenated America remains
in mourning, remains at a still silent dawn, yet bereft
of anyone, of any sect, of any skin tone, who will deliver
us to the new morning fearless men led us toward.
Dave Read