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The Jena 6
by Bruce W Niedt
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root….
- Lewis Allen, as sung by Billie Holiday
When three black kids crossed
an imaginary line in the schoolyard,
someone hung three nooses from an oak tree,
stems without fruit.
The culprits weren’t prosecuted,
but six black kids, who tried to mete out
their own justice, got trumped-up charges
and no bail, today’s version of the noose.
Justice is blind, they say, but not color-blind.
Nothing hangs from the oak tree now,
no “fruit”, or suggestion of it,
yet the ground still smells of rot.
02/06/2012 Author's Note: 6th Prize in the Mad Poets Review Poetry Contest, published in Mad Poets Review, 2008
Posted on 02/07/2012
Copyright © 2025 Bruce W Niedt
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