Never Allowed Us to Forgive
I am certain
Northern puritanical critics
disdained
“Leaves of Grass”
the South has never agreed
with Whiman's
vision of America
home of Democracy
Their response was fires
Civil War
and then segregation
among unequals
Jim Crow
lynchings
after clash of the blue and gray
brother’s war
Southern Cause was worst
a people ever fought
They would never allow us
to forgive them.
Steve Heins