© 11 February 2006, The Griot Poet
Amy Green Dickerson
Sunrise: 7 February 1915. Sunset: 3 February 2006
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His Saints, Psalms 116:15
We laud those assembled here
For the home going of our precious Mother Dear.
Many a summer we can remember
Visiting before the rigor of school in September
How HAPPY she’d be to see us…
That lasted about a day!
After that welcome,
She’d task a detailed list of chores for us
Keeping us too busy for Satan’s mischief,
Making us render due reverence at each meal served.
We read the Bible; studied the Word, learned from her example how to pray.
Though diminutive in stature, she was a WARRIOR on her knees:
Supplexing principalities and pimp-slapping demons
Petitioning God-Almighty for the life of her assaulted husband Horace,
A noble soldier in the Civil Rights struggle
And each blessed one of her children’s, children’s children.
Mother Dear imparted “her mind, her will, her imagination, her emotions and her intellect” to you
It is this soul-glue that holds this family together
To weather the storms of wars;
Economic downturns and political struggle…
“What hath God wrought,” Samuel Morse, from this man of God and this matriarch?
All those chores she had you do,
And the beatings she’d administer with the switch you’d pursue
Imparted her character: “never quit, never give up”
To each one of you…
She breathed out her spirit long before this assemblage.
The tears we cry of her spirit’s departure, but not as those without hope!
We will se her again in that great day of freedom, “true North”
In the air with the LORD
And beyond the fear of violence, death or rope
“Jesus wept.”
And afterward, raised Lazarus like He will Mother Dear and each one of us.
Have HOPE and not distress!
Heaven has gained three noteworthy angels:
Rosa Parks;
Corretta Scott King;
And Amy Green Dickerson…
And “Pa-Pa” is reunited with his princess!
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Future Venues
© 12 February 2006, The Griot Poet
Inspired by an e-mail from Thom the World Poet and the article “Crossing the Rubicon” by John Pilger on truthout.org
Prepare to sing sonnets in foxholes
And haiku in bunkers
As the only theology will be the pleas
Of human beings to thunder deities
Reigning down "shock and awe"
With "rods of god"
And weapons of massive destruction
For an addiction not just to oil which withers and sours,
But to broad, maniacal unadulterated power!
"Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven,"
John Milton knew us so well,
And we will soon have dominion over a cinder of what's left of earth:
Home of our birth
As ideologies replace ideas and scientific curiosity,
As scientific experts on global warming are silenced by
Politically appointed "hack-artists" lacking the graduation
Credentials from Texas A&M: he worked on the campaign;
He is our friend, is the only acid test of rampant cronyism
That spread from Texas to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Prophets Of Eternal Truths: sing loud at venues,
Like Pablo Neruda, we do not have time for "lilacs and
Poppy-petalled metaphysics."
We speak to megalomaniacs in ivory-glassed towers of babbling fools
Determined without consideration of consequence
Mjolnir's clap of nuclear lightning and sonic thunder:
Or, prepare to sing sonnets in foxholes
And haiku in bunkers!
Inspired by an e-mail from Thom the World Poet and the article “Crossing the Rubicon” by John Pilger on truthout.org
Prepare to sing sonnets in foxholes
And haiku in bunkers
As the only theology will be the pleas
Of human beings to thunder deities
Reigning down "shock and awe"
With "rods of god"
And weapons of massive destruction
For an addiction not just to oil which withers and sours,
But to broad, maniacal unadulterated power!
"Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven,"
John Milton knew us so well,
And we will soon have dominion over a cinder of what's left of earth:
Home of our birth
As ideologies replace ideas and scientific curiosity,
As scientific experts on global warming are silenced by
Politically appointed "hack-artists" lacking the graduation
Credentials from Texas A&M: he worked on the campaign;
He is our friend, is the only acid test of rampant cronyism
That spread from Texas to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Prophets Of Eternal Truths: sing loud at venues,
Like Pablo Neruda, we do not have time for "lilacs and
Poppy-petalled metaphysics."
We speak to megalomaniacs in ivory-glassed towers of babbling fools
Determined without consideration of consequence
Mjolnir's clap of nuclear lightning and sonic thunder:
Or, prepare to sing sonnets in foxholes
And haiku in bunkers!
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Promotion to a New Conservatory
© 5 February 2006, The Griot Poet
1 Corinthians 13:13 "And now abide Faith, Hope, Love, These Three; but the greatest of these is Love."
Nary a word spoken on their first date
When a young philosophy major stated: "The four things that I look for in a wife are character, personality, intelligence and beauty. And you have them all."
She would fall under his spell a year later.
They would marry, have children, preach sermons, organize and participate in marches; dodge rocks, bullets, bombs, and CONINTELPRO pre-FISA electronic surveillance and death threats.
Yet, when she became a single mother and a famous widow, she picked up his mantle without hesitation.
It would be her purview to carry on his message of Civil Rights, Human Rights, Poverty Rights for workers in Memphis before her husband was buried, and like him: the sum total of her living was not the accumulation of things.
Yet, she fought hard to get the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change built. Despite seen by many as aloof, competing for monies from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and more concerned with Martin’s legacy than his struggle.
Character
Before Bill embarrassed Hillary, she had to drink the bitter swill of his confession of infidelity. Even though he tried to justify it by saying “she reminded me of you,” the anger was probably hot and the suspicions of his not liking her on the trail coalesced on infidelity, not about her or the children’s safety. Yet, she stayed, through adultery, bombs and death threats…
Personality
Coretta had her own dreams and her own mind before the Morehouse fellow nicknamed “Tweed” turned on the charm. She caused quite an alarm to both Martins, father and son when she demanded the word “obey” from her wedding vows stricken: she was her OWN woman. She got her wish…
Intelligence
Coretta Scott was born April 27, 1927, the middle of three children born to Obadiah and Bernice Scott. She grew up poor, picking cotton in the hot fields of the segregated South, watching buses full of white kids pass to “separate but equal” schools or doing housework.
Coretta graduated first in her high school class of 17 in 1945. She thrived at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
She studied education and music. Coretta Scott competed for and gained access to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Not an easy feat even today! Her goal: to become a classical singer. She worked as a mail order clerk and cleaned houses to augment the fellowship that barely paid her tuition. Sister was on a mission…
Beauty
“Tweed” smoothly uttered the words: “You know every Napoleon has his Waterloo. I'm like Napoleon. I'm at my Waterloo, and I'm on my knees.”
She replied the elegant equivalent of “Negro, please!” “That’s absurd, you don’t even know me.”
Disappointed that he was shorter than she, he made up for this by his erudition and confidence. She made him wait six months after proposing before she said “yes.” At 350 guests, the wedding was the largest Atlanta had seen – then or since.
And who didn’t wish to be the cheek she kissed when he’d be freeze-framed for magazines like Ebony, Life, Time and Jet?
“Behind every great man” is so cliché. But without Coretta, would there be a Martin we laud today? Without Eve, would we remember Adam, who cowardly abdicated his responsibly in Africa/Eden, saying, “it was this woman you gave me?”
It is fitting she is the first person of African descent, male or female, to lie in state in the Georgia capital, after Brown proudly flying the “stars and bars.”
Though we wept, the vehicle that once housed her spirit and soul reflected the beauty that once dwelled within.
And Martin now has his final Waterloo in Heaven’s blue: reunited forever with his queen.
1 Corinthians 13:13 "And now abide Faith, Hope, Love, These Three; but the greatest of these is Love."
Nary a word spoken on their first date
When a young philosophy major stated: "The four things that I look for in a wife are character, personality, intelligence and beauty. And you have them all."
She would fall under his spell a year later.
They would marry, have children, preach sermons, organize and participate in marches; dodge rocks, bullets, bombs, and CONINTELPRO pre-FISA electronic surveillance and death threats.
Yet, when she became a single mother and a famous widow, she picked up his mantle without hesitation.
It would be her purview to carry on his message of Civil Rights, Human Rights, Poverty Rights for workers in Memphis before her husband was buried, and like him: the sum total of her living was not the accumulation of things.
Yet, she fought hard to get the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change built. Despite seen by many as aloof, competing for monies from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and more concerned with Martin’s legacy than his struggle.
Character
Before Bill embarrassed Hillary, she had to drink the bitter swill of his confession of infidelity. Even though he tried to justify it by saying “she reminded me of you,” the anger was probably hot and the suspicions of his not liking her on the trail coalesced on infidelity, not about her or the children’s safety. Yet, she stayed, through adultery, bombs and death threats…
Personality
Coretta had her own dreams and her own mind before the Morehouse fellow nicknamed “Tweed” turned on the charm. She caused quite an alarm to both Martins, father and son when she demanded the word “obey” from her wedding vows stricken: she was her OWN woman. She got her wish…
Intelligence
Coretta Scott was born April 27, 1927, the middle of three children born to Obadiah and Bernice Scott. She grew up poor, picking cotton in the hot fields of the segregated South, watching buses full of white kids pass to “separate but equal” schools or doing housework.
Coretta graduated first in her high school class of 17 in 1945. She thrived at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
She studied education and music. Coretta Scott competed for and gained access to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Not an easy feat even today! Her goal: to become a classical singer. She worked as a mail order clerk and cleaned houses to augment the fellowship that barely paid her tuition. Sister was on a mission…
Beauty
“Tweed” smoothly uttered the words: “You know every Napoleon has his Waterloo. I'm like Napoleon. I'm at my Waterloo, and I'm on my knees.”
She replied the elegant equivalent of “Negro, please!” “That’s absurd, you don’t even know me.”
Disappointed that he was shorter than she, he made up for this by his erudition and confidence. She made him wait six months after proposing before she said “yes.” At 350 guests, the wedding was the largest Atlanta had seen – then or since.
And who didn’t wish to be the cheek she kissed when he’d be freeze-framed for magazines like Ebony, Life, Time and Jet?
“Behind every great man” is so cliché. But without Coretta, would there be a Martin we laud today? Without Eve, would we remember Adam, who cowardly abdicated his responsibly in Africa/Eden, saying, “it was this woman you gave me?”
It is fitting she is the first person of African descent, male or female, to lie in state in the Georgia capital, after Brown proudly flying the “stars and bars.”
Though we wept, the vehicle that once housed her spirit and soul reflected the beauty that once dwelled within.
And Martin now has his final Waterloo in Heaven’s blue: reunited forever with his queen.
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