"The Rumbling," A Poetry Post for Sen. Clementa Pinckney

There is a great rumbling in the universe,
a pulsating, a shifting, a
a radiating, echoing,
unsettling in the frequency in our
earth space.

Because a resonating voice, a
room-filling blue and red atmosphere has been
suddenly removed, the
music of our reality is
infiltrated with some dissonance
on the second and fourth notes in this
4/4.

Because a great footstep has
suddenly stopped striking the ground,
there is a percussive silence
in the symphony.

Because a key lyricist is taken,
the feeling of the whole song has gone
grey, grey, grey and surprisingly
pianissimo grave.

The remaining words are
fluidly wafting into every crevice,
finding their way into minds and homes
across the great expanse,
unlimited by the absence of the speaker.

The great music of your life is
playing without respect to
life or death; it is
being transcribed for posterity and
being learned by new players.

Thousands of performers are
picking up your tempo and
repeating your great strains.

Some of us are crying,
which is right,
but some of us are
singing your songs:
songs for equality,
songs for fairness,
songs for justice,
songs for progress,
songs for faith.  

Some of us are remembering the sound,
the feel, the rhythm of your work,
and watching in awe as it
manifests itself on
every connected screen in this great world.

We are watching you expand and
reach your hands into souls that were previously
inaccessible.

For a time there will be grief,
and the whole piece will play una corda
in remembrance of the original composer.

But in a short while,
now that the mantle has fallen,
another great voice will
lead sing
what you sang
with renewed passion,
with a fresh turn,
and you and all of the angels in heaven will dance!

Because the work must continue,
as you expected,
there will be,
there must be,
another player.

-T. D. James-Moss