Reaction Poem

I am the Smoke King,

I am black!

I am swinging in the sky,

I am wringing worlds on awry;

I am the thought of the throbbing mills,

I am the soul of the soul-toil kills,

Wraithe of the ripple of trading rills,

Up I'm curling from the sod,

I am whirling home to God.

I am the Smoke King,

I am black.

I am the Smoke King,

I am black!

I am wreathing broken hearts,

I am sheathing love's light darts;

Inspiration of iron times,

Wedding the toil of toiling climes,

Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes --

Lurid lowering 'mid the blue,

Torrid towering toward the true,

I am the Smoke King,

I am black.

I am the Smoke King,

I am black!

I am darkening with song,

I am hearkening to wrong!

I will be black as blackness can --

The blacker the mantle the mightier the man!

For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began.

I am daubing God in night,

I am swabbing Hell in white:

I am the Smoke King,

I am black.

I am the Smoke King,

I am black!

I am cursing ruddy morn,

I am nursing hearts unborn:

Souls unto me are as stars in the night,

I whiten my black men -- I beckon my white!

What's the hue of a hide to a man in his might?

Hail, great, gritty, grimy hands --

Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands!

I am the Smoke King,

I am black.

You had a choice to pass as white,

But you knew that wouldn't be right.

Instead you embraced your skin color,

And united the people you love.

You knew the people you loved weren't being treated fairly,

and they were noticed in a good way rarely.

You had a choice to pass as white,

But you knew that wouldn't be right.

African Americans were blamed for nothing,

So you grew angrier and angrier.

You thought black people went through hell,

And all the injustice you would quell.

You had a choice to pass as white,

But you knew that wouldn't be right.

-Sophie