Dennis Brutus reading at the 2008 Split This Rock Festival
Photo © by jill brazel photography
Take out the poetry and fire
or watch it ember out of sight,
sanity reassembles its ash
the moon relinquishes the night.
But here and here remain the scalds
a sudden turn or breath may ache,
and I walk soft on cindered pasts
for thought or hope (what else?) can break.
–Dennis Brutus, 1963
Poem from Poetry & Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (p. 125).
Dennis Brutus was an exemplar of word and deed. See his Wiki bio & NYT obituary
