Editor’s note: The 1968 United States elections were held on November 5, and elected members of the 91st United States Congress. The election took place during the Vietnam War, in the same year as the Tet Offensive, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and the protests of 1968. The Republican Party won control of the presidency. … Republican former Vice President Richard Nixon defeated Democratic incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey. [Source: Wikipedia https://bit.ly/3pUyAOO] The following poem was written amidst the frustration, anger, and fear that permeated American hearts and homes.
Who will give warning this time
Is there anyone who will take the hot coals
Into the hands and throw them into the winds
And let the hot ashes fall onto the ground
There isn’t any corn to feed the children now
Only stubble of stalks and hard dry skeletons of silk
If you put your ear to the ground
You will hear the far off rumble of voices
Once there was a time we could hear the corn grow
Now it is the rumble of voices that gathers the harvest
Now the rumble of discontent grows into black clouds
That pour the hailstones into our outstretched hands
That melt into nothing
There is no one to give warning
No one to listen
The rumble we hear from the earth
Has grown into a roar and spreads like lava
Over the ground
And soon the ashes from Watts and Chicago and Harlem
The hunger of children and the tears of Vietnam
Are swept away
And all that is left is the wound into which
We all will bleed
*From Poets are the bravest, pub. date: 2001
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