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.