Jacob’s Ladder

Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman,

Sojourner Truth, John Brown, 

Ogalala, Adoeette, Nkrumah

Turner, Biko, Lumumba, Sirowiwa

Mandela, Martin Luther King and all

they saw the ladder

burning in their dreams 

and they climbed it

yet sleep today pressed us like a stone

in the dust
when we should have risen like a flames

to join their choir,

but we were too sick of running

and we closed our eyes to the Seraphim

ascending and descending

too conscious of the impossible distances
between our steps 

and we missed it

to mount the crystal ladder

and slowly we disappeared

one by one into the dark

beneath the stars to sleep forever 

and stone upon stone will thump
our cold shivering bodies into dust

wish we could have grown greater dreams

than desires