Eugene B. Redmond

Milestones of Lincoln 3

( Upon Dedication of Lincoln School)

As Your East Boogie Soul Ship/Flag Ship,

My Fleet Has Sailed Three Centuries of Lincoln School Lineage:

Spike Perkins to Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Elwood Buchanan to Miles Davis, Barbara Ann Teer to Russell Gunn

Eugene Haynes to Redina Medley & Ron Carter,

In the 1880s you came from the Shadows of The Slave Ship,

O Fastidious Lincoln Family,

& Boarded The Art Ship, The Scholar Ship, The Science Ship & The Sports Ship:

To Rendezvous with The Citizen Ship,

Navigated by a Brilliant Succession of Faculty Ships & Principal Ships . . .

Braving the Waves of 1991, You Disembarked at Bond Avenue

For the Memorial of Lincoln Knight Miles

& Recalled the 1962 Funeral of Miles’s father, Dr. Davis,

While Listening to the Poem “Milestone: The Birth of an Ancestor”:

Dressed up in pain

the flatted fifth began its funereal climb up the tribal stairwell:

grief-radiant as it

bulged and gleamed with moans

spread like laughter or Ethiopia’s wings

mourned its own percussive rise

became blues-borne

in the hoarse East Saint Louis air:

bore witness to the roaring calm

the garrulous silence

the caskets of tears

the gushing stillness:

the death of the Cool

became the birth of an Ancestor

Miles

Wasn’t the coolest,

hippest,

or cleanest cat to cruise my halls,

gymnasium, playing fields or confluent streets . . .

But he became the most Famous . . .

Cool or Hot, We Voyaged to this 2005 Port of Lincoln Middle School,

Reminiscent of that Crowning 1909 Arrival,

Now Sparkling as a New Cultural, Educational & Civic Flag Ship,

& “Middle,” yes, like “Passage” of our Ancestors

About whom Imogene Wilson spoke in 1942:

“carry the torch of intelligence lighted by our slaves ancestors . . . [and] be

dedicated to the unfinished work of these former slaves.”

Jubilant Survivalist Song, I am! & child of Mr. & Mrs. Sippi,

The River’s King & Queen who overcame the Riot of Nineteen Seventeen

Voyaging from Scholar Ship to Citizen Ship

Navigated by a Brilliant Succession of Principal Ships . . .

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