Darice Jones and Kathleen Finn Jordan

Darice Jones
“Y’all Be Tryin’ It”
Response

Our Turn
By
Kathleen Finn Jordan
Inspiration piece

Say their names—you don’t know them

But the world is aghast;

As each death repeats

We hope it’s the last

From the depths of the slave ships

The cries on waves heave

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.

 

So many marches, so many tries

So many tortured, so many died

Thousands protest—some steps toward a goal

But years of white privilege have taken their toll.

 

And now comes a moment when enough is enough

When platitudes, pardons and other small stuff

Have run out of meaning, run out of lives

Run out of mileage and people must rise.

 

Averting our gaze just won’t do anymore

Pretending to answer, revealed at its core

Being invisible—except to police

Receiving the taunts, and the dis with no peace.

 

Black Lives Matter and it must now be addressed

In housing, in jobs, in the courts—and the rest.

Each heart must listen and each head must grasp

The cost of injustice in present and past.

Now is the moment to join in, to see

To change what is broken, to honor, to plea.

 

Black Lives Matter demands our attention / respect

For years of abuse, overwhelming neglect

We’re all in a cage until everyone’s free

Injustice-by-system is injustice by ME.

 

Say their names—in each call out

Say their names as we grieve

Remember the chants on the waves as they heave

I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.

 

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