BLACK LIVES MATTER: A statement from Executive Director Lauren Breen

Neighborhood Legal Services is proud to serve almost 8,000 clients a year, nearly 50 percent of whom identify as African-American.  Justice for All– through peaceful, yet radical, change is long overdue.

Lauren Breen
Executive Director
June 3, 2020

 

The Tradition by Jericho Brown

Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought
Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learning
Names in heat, in elements classical
Philosophers said could change us. Star Gazer.
Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the will
Of the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotter
On this planet than when our dead fathers
Wiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby’s Breath.
Men like me and my brothers filmed what we
Planted for proof we existed before
Too late, sped the video to see blossoms
Brought in seconds, colors you expect in poems
Where the world ends, everything cut down.
John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.

Copyright © 2015 by Jericho Brown. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 7, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.