Lynching

Lynching 

Looking up with tears I remember

But who can ever forget?

The many bodies on those trees

that were hung up by their necks

Lynch mob gathering

With evil intentions, hearts grown cold

Noose in hand swung over a tree

Will the truth ever be told?

From standing upon a selling box

Their final journey ended here

Hanging in visual terror

For all to see and fear

Dear White People I am asking you

How can we reconstruct

And build trust from silent oppression

When your legacy of lynching has gone untouched

These victims cry out from the grave

Like branches on a willow tree

A memorial we must build unto them

 And to all affected by slavery

Breaking the cycle for future generations

Yet around and around we go

Modern day lynching still occurring

You will never change what you don’t know

When will you exonerate the innocent victims?

Strung up for violating the racial hierarchy

Multiple sites of horror on land

What a vicious racial history

Hangman’s knot wrapped around ragged rope

Leaving photo stain of racial violence

Exhibits of artistic brutality

This strange act made no sense

 If we published the complex list of names

What would the inventory of time say?

Are we dreaming about equal justice?

Is it even possible today?

Meet me at the hanging tree

Where the fruit suspended there is important to me

There a dead man is calling thee

To right the wrongs of history