Pearl Cleage

Inauguration
(for Barack Obama)

By Pearl Cleage

It is the day
when all things are possible.
It is the hour
when all journeys lie ahead.
It is the moment
when all dreams come true.

Now is the time to work.

©Pearl Cleage January 11, 2009

Haki Madhubuti

The Last First

By Haki R. Madhubuti
December 18, 2008

not the first heavyweight champion of the world,
airline pilot, quarterback in the NFL, college graduate,
doctor, teacher, big league baseball player, preacher-pastor,
ceo, mountain climber, university president, entrepreneur,
heart surgeon, inventor, governor or poet.
not the first mathematician, physicist, engineer, supreme court justice,
fastest man alive, publisher reporter, ambassador, entertainer,
four-star general, best-selling author, executive chef, sergeant major,
scientist, basketball hall-of-famer, economist, secretary of state,
nobel prize winner, astronaut, law enforcer, chair of the joint chiefs,
senator, first responder or state legislator.
not the best trumpet player alive, bank president, husband, father,
organic farmer, rapper’s rapper or coach’s coach.
not an unidentified question looking for an answer or
hidden agenda claiming the authority of one.
not an exploiter of the commons.
is the green hands nurturing fields, crops and rain forests.
is the water, food, education, clean energy, preventive health and intellect required.
is the humanitarian connecting music and economy, writing political notes
legible to professionals, novices, students and elders the world over.
is the community organizer maneuvering citizens’ campaigns
expecting to implant knowledge, consent and saneness on impracticability
as renegade* and renaissance* expand the can in we and yes
at the early-light of this promising century
not the last, is the first
barack obama, president.

*Secret Service code names for President-Elect Obama and Mrs. Obama

©Haki R. Madhubuti 2008

Haki R. Madhubuti, author of YellowBlack: The First Twenty-one Years of a Poet’s Life, a memoir, is an educator and the author of over 24 books. He is the Founder and Publisher of Third World Press and University Distinguished Professor and Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Chicago State University.

www.thirdworldpressinc.com

E. Ethelbert Miller (Photo by Shyree Mezick)

The Day The Earth Stood Still

By E. Ethelbert Miller

Some of us took Octavia Butler
and Samuel Delany books off the shelf.

Churches closed their doors as if people
were saying their prayers for the last time.

In was a cold day in January. Cold enough
for history to stay indoors under a quilt.

Many of us. Maybe millions went down
to the Mall to hear Obama.

I stood behind Duke Ellington and Billy
Strayhorn. Duke was composing on the spoit.

Sacred music was in the air. I wanted
to lift every voice and sing.

I wanted to hear the thunder and watch
The first drops of a new American rain.