SPLIT THIS ROCK: Poems of Provocation & Witness

E. Ethelbert Miller

 

TOMORROW

tomorrow
i will take the
journey back
sail
the
middle passage
it
would be better
to be packed
like spoons again
than
to continue to
live among
knives and forks


PANAMA

in the early twenties
a boat brought
my father to America
his first impressions
were spoken in Spanish

years later when he
had forgotten the
language he could not
remember what he had

seen

 

 

E. Ethelbert Miller is the board chair of the Institute for Policy Studies and the director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University. He is editor of Poet Lore.

Published in Volume 9, Number 1, Winter 2008.

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E. Ethelbert Miller
Miller's Tribute to Sterling Brown: The Memorial Issue
E. Ethelbert Miller: The Wartime Issue
E. Ethelbert Miller: DC Places Issue

E. Ethelbert Miller on Ed Cox (Profiles Issue)
E. Ethelbert Miller: Evolving City Issue

E. Ethelbert Miller: Langston Hughes Tribute Issue