By Douglas J. Lanzo
Copyright 2020    

First published in Scarlet Leaf Review on August 9, 2021

Two black horses, regal and unbowed,
pulled his caisson solemnly across a bridge
forever stained by the blood of peaceful marchers
led by a rising star in the Civil Rights movement
affectionately nicknamed the “boy from Troy”
by his dear friend and mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A humble man and ordained Baptist minister
steeped in Scripture and the exemplary life
of Mahatma Gandhi, John Lewis
preached and exemplified non-violence
and redemptive suffering at great personal sacrifice.
The price included a skull fractured and never fully healed,
a body beaten unconscious and left in its own pool of blood,
and wounds and scars of every stripe inflicted
in dozens of hate-filled beatings
as he led freedom riders and
chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
riding buses and marching in the Deep South
for a righteous cause.

Staring death in its face
on more than one occasion, he stood tall —
ready to make the ultimate sacrifice, if required,
in a compelling struggle to create
a more just and holy nation,
one true to its founding principles of
liberty, equality and justice.

On March 5, 1965, the nation felt righteous indignation
as they witnessed the anguish and suffering
of John Lewis and his fellow marchers,
brutally beaten but morally unbowed,
just as two majestic horses
bore the casket of a man too humble
to rename the bridge in his honor.

On this day of remembrance, rose petals
lay scattered across the bridge,
vivid reminders of the
drops of blood shed that Bloody Sunday
in the searing face of racism
and senseless hate in a futile attempt
to thwart the historic march
of Doctor King and his followers
from Selma to the steps of Alabama’s capitol 
as Doctor King, John Lewis and their fellow marchers
blazed the trail of voting freedom
marching 54 blood-stained miles.

John Lewis’ words about
the many bridges we still have to crossechoed in my mind with the footsteps of
each mounted horse as
they pulled the beloved Civil Rights icon across
the notorious Edmund Pettus Bridge,
 trailed by his family and chief of staff
and watched in adulation by a nation
marching with him in spirit and in truth, together,
one bridge closer to the Promised Land.