“A Versified Voyage” A Poem By Bob McNeil

Another boy was raised at the Hudson River

With a firm Earth Sign—

A promising limb on an African tree—

And The Thinker, his archetype,

Sat beneath his unburdened brow.

24 seasons later,

The child scrutinized

The Lost Tribe’s Jerusalem—Harlem.

And Like East 127^th Street’s Shakespeare,

Langston Hughes,

The boy embraced his race.

At 54 seasons,

The boy became a knowledge-consuming entity

Learning about African-rhythmic prose, odes,

Bantu, Zulu, Malinke, Yoruba,

South of the Sahara songs.

The child traveled

The geography of his mentality

With David Diop, Dadie,

Césaire and Senghor,

Poets who created the seeds

That became Afrocentric Breeds.

To the boy,

These poets were sight-igniting keys.

By plying those keys,

He opened doors to vistas

Where Black people were birthing

A renown-bound future.

Eluding adult’s brimstone-sizzling stress,

Beneath a dirt-antiquated tree,

He studied comfortably

And saw the spirits of the pundits.

At 55 seasons,

Wherever there was a pencil and paper,

He was runner-in-a-race-inspired—

Those were his sight-igniting keys.

By plying those keys,

The child and a page converged

And an aged versifier emerged.

By Bob McNeil

Copyright 2011