30/30: Golden Shovel poem #21

source: A Year of Protest and Reform. What Now for Racial Justice?

 

A moment when people waited nervously, a

Moment when the worst was expected after a year

Of worldwide demonstrations, of

Protests to support Black lives, to protest

Against white supremacy and

A history white people do not know how to reform.

What truth is hard to accept, what

Form of reconciliation is now

Available to those who do not know for

What they must apologize, who believe racial

Connection requires a color-blinded justice?

 

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Here is how I am using Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel poem format, as proposed by the Sunday New York Times "At Home" section, for 30 Poems in 30 Days during National Poetry Month.

 

Take a newspaper headline that attracts you.

Use each word in the line as the end word for each line in your poem.

Keep the end words in order.

Describe the story that the headline is for.

The poem does not have to be about the same subject as the headline that creates the end words.