Forty Acres: a poem for Barack Obama from Nobel winner Derek Walcott

[Jackeens]

Forty Acres: a poem for Barack Obama from Nobel winner Derek Walcott

The West Indies poet Derek Walcott, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature, writes exclusively for The Times to mark the election of Barack Obama as President




Out of the turmoil emerges one emblem, an engraving —

a young Negro at dawn in straw hat and overalls,

an emblem of impossible prophecy, a crowd

dividing like the furrow which a mule has ploughed,

parting for their president: a field of snow-flecked

cotton

forty acres wide, of crows with predictable omens

that the young ploughman ignores for his unforgotten

cotton-haired ancestors, while lined on one branch, is

a tense

court of bespectacled owls and, on the field's

receding rim —

a gesticulating scarecrow stamping with rage at him.

The small plough continues on this lined page

beyond the moaning ground, the lynching tree, the tornado's

black vengeance,

and the young ploughman feels the change in his veins,

heart, muscles, tendons,

till the land lies open like a flag as dawn's sure

light streaks the field and furrows wait for the sower.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5088429.ece

[LiberalEsto]

1. That is shatteringly beautiful

It brought tears to me eyes.

[Window]

2. At a loss for words. K/R.

:kick:

[Chorophyll]

3. Wow. Thank you for posting this.

:hug:

[crispini]

4. Ah. Tears again.

Wow.

[central scrutinizer]

5. thanks so much for posting this

[scarletwoman]

6. Intense. Wow. Got me crying again...

Thank you so very much for finding this and bringing it to us!

sw

[bobd0]

7. I didn't shed a single tear last night but I'm weeping uncontrollably now.