Under the ring of linked brown arms, <br />bare feet, brown feet with whiter soles <br />drum on the dusty, hard brown earth, stomp the rhythm <br />as if to wake the gods of earth <br />to draw the rain down to the roots, <br />caressing seeds against the growing time, <br />hearing the tears at the heart of things; <br /> <br />hearing the shuffle-clank <br />of leg irons listening for some rhythm that consoles <br />with promise; hearing the blues sung softly, like a prayer, <br />taken up across the cotton field, <br />sadness meeting hope in longing patience <br /> <br />and a century ago <br />the white lady who loved Africa said, <br />I am weary with the future <br /> <br />* <br /> <br />white boy, you’re so young – <br />how could you hear the blues so well? <br />are they just around the corner <br />of every town that’s built, as dusk descends? <br />Do they lurk wherever lips meet plangent trumpet, <br />in the reeds of mourning clarinet, <br />the nostalgia of a dreaming saxophone? <br />Wherever future whispers to the past <br />and hears the sad reply? <br /> <br />white boy, white boy without a past, <br />you hear the blues so well, <br />I think you hear <br />those future blues, <br />those old white future blues, <br />those lonesome future blues.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0011-those-white-and-future-blues-to-chet/
