REQUIEM FOR TROY DAVIS
By Gwen Russell Green
As Billie Holiday sang about strange fruit
She spoke of Black men hanged from trees
And that happened before I was born
And I listened, but not often
And I felt sad, but not for long enough
When Martin was shot
I was in high school, with lots of white friends
And Jewish ones
And I felt mad at them
But time passed
And the blood on America’s hands
Smudged off
For a time
Stevie wrote Martin a birthday song
Even got him a holiday
And I was satisfied
And grateful
And then
On Wednesday,
September 21st, 2011
In the year of our Lord
And in Georgia
There was a man
Named Troy
Who went to his death
Poison injected in his vein…
ON PURPOSE
And he asked God
To have forgiveness and mercy
On those who could not have peace
Before his death, or ever after
Troy went into the fiery furnace
Of 22 years, no hundreds of years
Of hatred
For a crime he did not do
Troy found solace in Jesus
Behind prison bars
And the cross around his neck
Reminded him/and us
Of sacrifice for causes bigger than human backs
Could bear
And Troy
remembered and knew his brother
A thief on a cross
And knew his Savior
Head bloodied
Side pierced
Nailed hands
And feet cracked and crushed
Obedient in submission
Unto death
And Troy knew that life
Is not controlled
By pardons and paroles
But by God
Remembered vengeance is
Not ours to take
But is promised
Of that we can be certain
That those who defied the Pope, a president, the people
Who cried out for Troy to be spared
Not Barabbas
Would have an ultimate victory
At another place
Another time
Eternity is a long time
For paradise
And for fire
And in 2011, in Georgia
As justice pulled her blindfold
Down into a death mask
Lifted her flowing skirt
And ran, once again
From Deep South hatred
In Georgia
We who remain feel the blood
Dripping from hands that
Will never again be washed clean
And we wait for an eternity and for Troy
To welcome us home.
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