Can you understand the sorrow,
the long-held yearning for peace?
Can you understand the outrage,
the reply to unspeakable evil?
Can you understand the pleading,
the prophetic calls for satisfying justice?
Can you understand the flowing wrath,
the anger stirred into action?
Can you understand the violence,
the work done beneath a darkened sky?
Can you understand the destruction,
the demolition of a source of life?
Can you understand why all of this transpired
over a brown body, lynched and dead in the street?
Can you understand the revolution
at The Place of a Skull?