Who wakes now who lay blind with sleep? Who starts bright-eyed with anger from his bed? I do. I, the plain citizen. I cannot sleep. I hold the torturing fire in my head. I, an American, call the dead Negro's name, And in the hot dark of the city night I walk the streets alone and sweat with shame. Too late to rise, to raise the dead too late. This is the harvest. The seeds sown long ago - The careless word, sly thought, excusing glance. I reap now everything I let pass, let go. This is the harvest of my own indifference. I, the plain citizen, have grown disorder In my own world. It is not what I meant. But dreams and images are potent and can murder. I stand accused of them. I am not innocent. Can I now plant imagination, honesty, And love, where violence and terror were unbound - The images of hope, the dream's responsibility? Those who died here were murdered in my mind.
