'LIKE A MIGHTY STREAM'

"...until justice rolls down like waters, and
righteousness like a mighty stream."
                                              -The Bible
                 
One  last sentence for Deep South 2003

Traveling down south one more
time (last time?) to stand "on
the spot," on many spots, of many
moments I cannot forget, such as
the motel where the Dreamer
died, and way past Graceland to that
museum where Miss Mae Smith softly
spoke of the blues, but really taught
us about "Delta time," talkin' just

so slow and easy, and bus windows
filled with old plantation fields and
oh-so-sad shotgun shanties, the road
leading us down to Mound Bayou, where
we lifted our faces to the southern sun
and saw Mr. Milburn Crowe all aglow,
filling us with his light about a small
town he feels we must always remember,
arriving later in Jackson to find Hollis

Watkins still spreadin' that freedom
spirit, and singin' songs with only
one lyric: "We can make a difference
if we stay together," then south, south
to New Orleans to see to see its beautiful
iron balconies wrought by slaves, its
paddle boats once laden with cotton, and,  
on the streets the bounce of black jazz, but
back to Mississippi to track the killers
to their lair in Philadelphia, where Mr.
Dearman's heart still hurts as he recalls
June 21,1964, after which we stood in
front of James Chaney's grave, where I
meant to say, "Look well, students, this
is the cost of freedom," but I forgot, and
so instead read the 23rd Psalm, followed
by a few verses of "We Shall Overcome,"
sung black and white together, before rolling

on to that little museum in Alabama, with
the tour guide who was for real, then
followed march route (Hey, quick!: Luizzo
stone at mile marker #111!) all the way
to Montgomery, to see a Civil Rights
memorial in the rain, as if we were
inside the fountain, and justice was
rolling down like waters, when the mighty
stream carried us into "Bombingham"

where stands the church four little ones
perished, ending up finally before the
tomb of the Dreamer whose words urge
us to dream on, for in those dreams who
knows what better world may yet come,
like that afternoon when the rains stopped
and we crossed over the bridge to freedom,

and so there was the South, there was a
bus, and this group, and then there was
...white week.


April 27, 2003


All written material © Bill Schechter, 2016
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