On this day in 1862, President Lincoln signed an act abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, an important step in the long road toward full emancipation and enfranchisement for African Americans.
This huiku, describing a spectacle out my window that occurred about the same time George Floyd was nabbed and killed on a busy street in Minneapolis, speaks to our nation’s continued struggle with systemic racism as the whole world cries out,
“Black Lives Matter!”
Spectacle
Fish out of water
In talons of an eagle
Protesters cry on
From Called to be Alive! In observance of National Poetry Month
