The First Time I Saw Frederick Douglass
Locking eyes, for just a moment.
It was the first time I saw Frederick Douglass.
I mean, really saw Frederick Douglass.
No longer detached but attached
at the spine through the brain.
Carried away in the sweep of that moment
telling me all I wanted to know.
The curves within the stern slants.
So good, with so little.
Hair flowing into wings.
Soft, wooly, stretched out,
like a comfortable head cap.
Eyes shot with intention.
All while keeping the chill of lead
and the coolness of onyx
confected with pearls.
Having ideas of tornado speed and lift.
A rebellious whirl,
defined as much by what is not there
but should be.
Adapting.
Adopting.
Showing a dexterous flame
in twists for intensity and illumination.
Dignity, to be closely obeyed,
magnified in iron like silence.
It was just not in his blood
to play a safe game
and not shake this present
nor lose purpose through decades.
A liberator from delusion.
Forever contemporary.
Inserting new levers in language.
A builder, and not for nothing.
Knowing it matters not
how you treat the apex,
if the base is allowed to rot.
A rapporteur,
vast like a fast-moving flood,
where before you know it,
he is upon you.
Both originator and ornate spreader.
Having once latched on to his identity,
never was it lost.
Hanging time on a scale for humanity.
Fighting a war so great it could not be spent
and a battle so great
it could not but succeed
against a surly grim beast
squeezing us by the throat.
Throwing elbows along the way,
to get what is due by birth right for allegiance.
All Just phrases, which had been flung down on paper,
come hard by,
and then trampled upon.
Simply put,
if you are afraid you will lose something
when fairness is fundamental,
therein lies the problem.