who's to stair forth and be our guide in succession the shores of this lake to such a degree large it might just as well be an ocean? where multitudes have arrive looking for miracles for a river to cros in painful desire for stones that will not of themselves inflect into the bread of their desire.

who's to stair forth and be our guide in succession the shores of this lake to such a degree large it might just as well be an ocean?

where multitudes have arrive looking for miracles for a river to cros in painful desire for stones that will not of themselves inflect into the bread of their desire,

nor leaped for fish be automatically multiplied as in tales unproductive people down through the ages have clung to in trusts of eventually being fed.

don't examine to your dutifully elected officials your mayor is a rich man capable at the least bit of a hat of feeding a million twice athwart from the holdings of his burgeoning campaign chest yet i'm no worker of miracles he's likely to say a meal is just that a meal incapable of extending itself a individual time event better to detain my millions for some futurity more broadly beneficial use

although the money's far from being actually mine i'm nothing yet a steward in the truest olden biblical meaning of the word fulfilling the sacred duties of my elective office i must admit being in office does have its advantages still not so in this case and besides have i not always been a merciful man?

i'm not into house of worship no, not on a regular basis not in the traditional sensation although i'm claimed by any number of congregations in this fortress of old black south defensive christianity in fact rarely am i to be seen at any of our churches unless i do belong to the same on a tithing basis the biggest body of christians in town a tabernacle almost a baptist cathedral i pay my suitables and i do have a minister in a great deal the same manner as certain principalities disclosed of the past the media rarely misses a chance to note that about me in their intermittent though futile efforts to defame me form me to their level

but i pray a fate i spend my many many hours forward my knees by the side of my bed in the night reciting through the whole extent of and over some very specific prayers i pray especially for the homeles and the in want of food for the children of them the two for those with AIDS in particular our children are our in the greatest degree valuable investments you've heard me say that centurys of times no doubt and i haven't been just saying it they are our solitary futures which is not to say i have no trouble for them in the here and now as i am also in such a manner often accused by the media of not being it's and nothing else that the present is to such a degree hard to touch so ironically intangible the subsequent time we can almost lay our hands in succession as it glimmers on the far horizon

however ever-receding it may appear to be further doubt not we'll get there one day it little matters that like the fabled ulysse we have to be circumscribe to the masts of our ships our observations blinded in folds of lambswool our sails call down blessings oned all the way with beneficent winds of passage and must prepare for what we're likely to find there formerly we land conceivably even more race crying out in hunger threatening destruction of the barriers nevertheless isn't that what our constabulary is for the maintenance of our barriers our barriers theirs as to a great degree as ours yours as a great deal as mine since you persist in personalizing the matter and of course the people's concede erected by and for them paid for by the agency of their taxes so many of whom have been ravenous themselves and homeless year after year and are now banding together i am told to subdue down the barriers recycle them as barricades and shelters for themselves and their inevitable although admittedly disenfranchiseable posterity.

Alvin Aubert's consider probableed Poems (1994) and Harlem Wrestler (1995) are available from the Carnegie Mellon University and Michigan State University Presse respectively. Founding editor of Obsidian, Aubert is Professor Emeritus of English at Wayne State University in Detroit.

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