For the Family of George Floyd …

“I must proceed on course today, tomorrow, and the day after,
since no prophet can be allowed to die anywhere except in Jerusalem.”
Luke 13: 33 NAB

He’d left Nazareth, called out
to the road that led to Jerusalem––
Houston to Minneapolis––to finish the work.

He didn’t know how it would come out
but sacrifice always would be involved,
and he was ready; O God, he was ready

walking, talking with those he loved
teaching them, encouraging them
to work hard and follow their dreams

and remember him and what he had said
and what he himself had learned
from his black experience.

They listened and remembered
and when he was gone, they faced a future
reconfigured by his death and by his life

undone by one who didn’t recognize
the son of God cuffed and lying beneath
his knee dying, and ignored

the pleading voice, I can’t breathe.
Ignored the statement, I’m dying
and the call to his dead mother

that would break a heart
less hardened to justice and mercy
than that of the murderer that day.

Pontius Pilate had his way.
Law and order were what was needed.
In cowardly fashion he gave over the Christ

to the mob who called for his death.
The deed done, the sun eclipsed
he was buried in a tomb of stone

only to rise after three days
as the people have risen at
George Floyd’s death, unwilling
to accept anything less than equality
henceforth.