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Read more poems by James A. Emanuel: James A. Emanuel Poems at Poetry X.

I hear a whistling
Through the water.
Little Emmett
Won't be still.
He keeps floating
Round the darkness,
Edging through
The silent chill.
Tell me, please,
That bedtime story
Of the fairy
River Boy
Who swims forever,
Deep in treasures,
Necklaced in
A coral toy.

*  In 1955, Till, a fourteen-year-old from Chicago, for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi, was murdered by white men who tied a gin mill fan around his neck and threw his body into the Tallahatchie River.

Emmett Till

Ce sifflet, là-bas,
Qui vient de la rivière,
C'est Emmett, le petit gars
Qu'on a cru tuer hier.
Dans les eaux noires
Où flotte sa mémoire,
Dans le silence glacé,
Voyez-le danser.
Oh ! contez-moi
Comme aux enfants sages
La légende du petit gars
De la rivière qui nage
Au milieu des trésors
Longtemps après sa mort
Et qui porte au cou
Le corail d'une roue.


Translation by Jean Migrenne

Added: 9 Jun 2002 | Last Read: 12 Feb 2012 4:24 AM | Viewed: 10983 times

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