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Black Walden
Black Walden
I wanted to tell you
I saw little Carlos — bomber jacket,
Crew cut — selling pupusas outside
Casa del Pueblo.
He looks happy. Strong.
8 is so young, though
To work the streets.
Columbia Heights. Malcolm X Park.
8-year-old minefield —
Glorious beautiful boom.
But I learned today that Thoreau and
his Walden Pond, before he got there,
before his book, before it was a Green Place,
there were a bunch of slaves.
I learned today that there was such a thing
As Black Walden, a whole world,
Of slaves and freed slaves,
In the woods
By the pond with the pine,
Pinned canoe that rightfully
Is said to have belonged to the pond.
Having learned of them — today —
Brister Freeman and his friends
Exiled to the least fertile ground
around that pond —
I took the afternoon to look
At the clouds, cold, silver clouds,
And ponder — attending the sky,
Attending the hours —
The only question left to us:
How then truly shall we live?
