By Johari Jabir

a little Palestinian boy, walking to school in Gaza
encountered an Israeli soldier driving a U.S. – made tank
Looking up into the soldier’s eyes, the little boy said,
“Mr. American President, when you look at me, would you say
he could have been my son,
like President Obama said of Trayvon Martin

meanwhile, a little black girl,
in a studio apartment in north St. Louis
waiting for her father to pour milk into her bowl of captain crunch cereal,
turned her gaze toward the tv,
where images of fire and smoke rained down on gaza
“daddy,” she said,
“is god blue?”

Rev. James Cleveland called out, God Is
and John Coltrane responded, A Love Supreme
but Billie Holiday,
holding a small glass of cognac in her right hand
flicking a cigarette in her left hand
looked over at James and John,
then looked up at the heavens toward God
and sang,
look here Pops, you don’t know what love is
until you know the meaning of the blues

Mahalia Jackson
assured the little Palestinian boy and the little black girl;
he’s got the whole world in his hands

Johari Jabir is an artist, scholar, and contemplative. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Johari is director of music at St. George & St. Matthias Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL, and he teaches in the department of Black Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. His first book, Conjuring Freedom: Music and Masculinity in the Gospel Army of the Civil War (Ohio State University Press, 2017), is a cultural history of the nation’s first Black regiment, the 1^st South Carolina Volunteers.