But the drums could not be silent.
They were always heard.
When the land became dark,
After the wicked sucked
Virtue from the sun,
The drums brought the light,
And the feet were always listening.
Informed by the past,
They honored the Yoruba in movement,
Backs and hands might surrender,
But the feet never could.
They brought beauty to the ugliest world.
And the feet didn’t go anywhere without the song.
The song believed the sum was better than the parts,
So there was always a response to the call.
You can hear it in the subtle intonations of the crowd,
That what happened to you happened to the rest of us.
This is an excerpt from the poem “The Eyes Have It,” by Lens award-winning contributor Chuck Perkins. It’s excerpted by permission from his new book, Beautiful and Ugly Too, published by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press.
