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To Church
You sat in the tall pew;
No new vows were wrung
From your hard heart, pardon,
Hovering on the air,
Had no place to go.
You went down on your knees
With the rest; the priest's blessing
Fell on you like the tree's
Shadow in which at last
Your crossed bones were buried.
NO
Once in this corner a man stood,
Not of your race; but his thick blood
Was dark as yours, the same poison
Tainted it at its far source
In time and space. He asked no reason
For the sure way that his hand turned
To violence, nor why in its course
The dream blew where the deed had burned.
Are you better than he, that the glib questions
Multiply at your tongue's tip?
That punishment follows the hand's slip
More speedily? You have not put on
From wardrobes of the elate mind
His bright clothes of sunlight and wind.