Young Afrikans
of the furious
Who take Today and jerk it out of joint
have made new underpinnings and a Head.
Blacktime is time for chimeful
poemhood
but they decree a
jagged chiming now.
If there are flowers flowers
must come out to the road. Rowdy!—
knowing where wheels and people are,
knowing where whips and screams are,
knowing where deaths are, where the kind kills are.
As for that other kind of kindness,
if there is milk it must be mindful.
The milkofhumankindness must be mindful
as wily wines.
Must be fine fury.
Must be mega, must be main.
Taking Today (to jerk it out of joint)
the hardheroic maim the
leechlike-as-usual who use,
adhere to, carp, and harm.
And they await,
across the Changes and the spiraling dead,
our Black revival, our Black vinegar,
our hands, and our hot blood.
Gwendolyn Brooks, “Young Afrikans,” from Blacks (Chicago: Third World Press, 1987). Reprinted by consent of Brooks Permissions.
Source:
Blacks
(Third World Press, 1987)
