Brian+R.

"What Comes Around Goes Around" poems.

Poem #1

By Dudley Randall
 * Ballad of Birmingham**

"Mother dear, may I go downtown Instead of out to play, And march the streets of Birmingham In a Freedom March today?"

"No, baby, no, you may not go, For the dogs are fierce and wild, And clubs and hoses, guns and jails Aren't good for a little child."

"But, mother, I won't be alone. Other children will go with me, And march the streets of Birmingham To make our country free."

"No, baby, no, you may not go, For I fear those guns will fire. But you may go to church instead And sing in the children's choir."

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, And bathed rose petal sweet, And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know that her child Was in the sacred place, But that smile was the last smile To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion, Her eyes grew wet and wild. She raced through the streets of Birmingham Calling for her child.

She clawed through [|bits of glass and brick], Then lifted out a shoe. "O, here's the shoe my baby wore, But, baby, where are you?"

Dudley Randall's higher purpose

Poem #2

by Philip Levine
 * Animals Are Passing from Our Lives**

It's wonderful how I jog on four honed-down ivory toes my massive buttocks slipping like oiled parts with each light step.

I'm to market. I can smell the sour, grooved block, I can smell the blade that opens the hole and the pudgy white fingers

that shake out the intestines like a  [|hankie]. In my dreams the snouts drool on the marble, suffering children, suffering flies,

suffering the consumers who won't meet their steady eyes for fear they could see. The boy who drives me along believes

that any moment I'll fall on my side and drum my toes like a typewriter or squeal and shit like a new housewife

discovering television, or that I'll turn like a beast cleverly to hook his teeth with my teeth. No. Not this pig. Philip Levine's higher purpose

Poem #3

A Hymn to God the Father by John Donne

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which was my sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run, And do run still, though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won Others to sin, and made my sin their door? Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son Shall shine as he [|shines] now, and heretofore; And, having done that, thou hast done; I fear no more.

John Donne's higher purpose

THE BIG WRAP UP