We hope We pray Our black skins Reflecting the face of God In storefront temples Jive and Jehovah artists Lay out the human canvas The mood indigo A chorus of summer herbs Of mangoes and bar-b-que Of perfumed sisters Hip strutting past Fried fish joints On Lenox Avenue in steamy August A carnival of children People in the daytime streets Ring-a-levio warriors Stickball heroes Hide-and-seek knights and ladies Waiting to sing their own sweet songs Living out their own slam-dunk dreams Listening For the coming of the blues A weary blues that Langston knew And Countee sung A river of blues Where Du Bois waded And Baldwin preached There is lilt Tempo Cadence A language of darkness Darkness known Darkness sharpened at Mintons Darkness lightened at the Cotton Club Sent flying from Abyssinian Baptist To the Apollo. Louis Took the bus from Holly Springs Hitched a ride from Gee's Bend Took the long way through Memphis The third deck down from Trinidad A wrench of heart from Goree Island A wrench of heart from Goree Island To a place called Harlem Harlem was a promise Of a better life, of a place where a man Didn't have to know his place Simply because He was Black They brought a call A song First heard in the villages of Ghana/Mali/Senegal Calls and songs and shouts Heavy hearted tambourine rhythms Loosed in the hard city Like a scream torn from the throat Of an ancient clarinet A new sound, raucous and sassy Cascading over the asphalt village Breaking against the black sky over 1-2-5 Street Announcing Hallelujah Riffing past resolution Yellow, tan, brown, black, red Green, gray, bright Colors loud enough to be heard Light on asphalt streets Sun yellow shirts on burnt umber Bodies Demanding to be heard Seen Sending out warriors From streets known to be Mourning still as a lone radio tells us how Jack Johnson Joe Louis Sugar Ray Is doing with our hopes. They took the road in Waycross, Georgia Skipped over the tracks in East St.
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