Note:
I am re-publishing this to the 60's group because I honestly believe that Malcolm was a significend figure in that decade)
When you quit your job on the railroad
Did you know how it would end?
I guess you weren't given the sight
To see around that final bend.
Perhaps you, like other prophets
Wouldn't have made it all the way
If you'd seen the last of the drama
Seen yourself on that last day.
Riddled with bullets lying in blood
Pain and shock on your face
You looked more like a gunned down gangster
Than a minister of hope and grace
Malcolm Little was your "slave name"
Flat Nebraska was your home
From Harlem to Boston to prison
Is the path that you would roam.
But like Joseph the son of Jacob
In prison you heard the call
And through the Faith of Islam
You stood up straight and tall.
You told your brothers that they were men
And to bow to no one but God
To fight for a better future
No matter that the road was hard.
But some of the Brothers grew jealous
As your star continued to rise
But the people saw you as leader
That had come from beyond the skies
A pilgrimage to Mecca showed you
What Islam was really about
And that color was nothing compared to love
No matter what the "Nation" might shout.
Preaching unity instead of hate
Is what really sealed your doom
The contract was out and the men were prepared
And a crowd had filled the room.
That day in the Audubon Ballroom
I wonder if you knew
That the dancers would be bullets
And the last dance would be death for you.
02/19/98
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Comments: 3
Thanks for publishing this to The Renewed Activist.
Thanks for publishing this to The Sixties.
This was a very moving and well-proportioned tribute to the late great Malcolm X; your conciseness is nothing short of astonishing here in the tight rhymed quatrain form you decided to inflect your own meditation into.
Alex Haley would've appreciated your brevity, no doubt, or at least his editor.
I honor Malcolm, because he went from a distorted image of Islam to a freeing one that was the true egalitarian vision of all people, regardless of race and sex, worshipping together. Instead of hating the devil and cursing the darkness, toward the very end of his life he lit a candle and Embraced God as pure Love. And it cost him his life. So although he is remembered mainly for his incendiary speeches and opposition to Marthin Luther King's civil disobedience movement through a call to violence, really and truly Malcolm X was on the Sufi path that both you and I have embraced.
I wish him well, in the alam al mithal.