The Black Christ, & other poems

Chapter 49: The Law That Changeth Not

Open in WeRead

About This Book

A debut collection of formally polished poems that moves between intimate lyric and public meditation, exploring love, youth, mortality, faith, and racial identity. The poet employs sonnets and varied forms, classical and Christian imagery, and musical rhythms to examine personal feeling and communal injustice, sometimes elegiac, sometimes celebratory. Several pieces dramatize spiritual questioning and the cost of social servitude, while others reflect on beauty, art, and the paradoxes of pride and poverty. The result is a compact sequence blending technical restraint with vivid metaphor and moral concern.

The Law That Changeth Not

Stern legislation of a Persian hand

Upon my heart, Love, strict Medean writ,

Must till the end of time and me command

Obeisance from him who fostered it.

All other codes may hide their littlest flaw

Toward which the hopeful prisoner may kneel;

I come of those who once they write a law

Do barricade themselves against appeal.

So stand I now condemned by mine own tort;

Extenuations? There is none to plead.

I am my own most ultimate resort;

There is no pardon for the stricken Mede.

I turn to go, half valiant, half absurd,

To perish on a promise, die on a word.