Terry Blackhawk: Legacy of Flames                                   

i. Globe lightning

They say it could happen anywhere,
storm clouds piled high, swooped
in from across the plains, heavy air

split, not by a jagged bolt dropped
towards the ground, slamming
into the earth, but a plasmic build-up

of transient energy, a roiling, flaming
globe of ions and static—a blue one,
one July at 326 S. Douglas came swarming

up the walk, or so Uncle Don told me, then
just as it reached the porch, disappeared.
It was the late 1920s, two decades beyond

the riot of ‘08, whose whiff of death, like the weird
smells loosed by the orb, must’ve lingered…


ii. Tree as monument

For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Luke 23:31

…and lingers still. A forsaken tree—replica,
bronzed, from a Black-owned barbershop, lone
obelisk—pierces the heart, America.

A trunk without branches, accusing token,
the sculpture points skyward in mute memoriam
to the battering, the desecration

of a body let dangle from its limb
then gouged, sliced, and still the mob
craved more. For trophies, some climbed

the trunk, tore into bark, heartwood, chopped
chunks of wood, stand-ins for what I shudder
to name. In the post-riot photo, limbs lopped off,

the old elm stands near the burnt-out shop where
it once gave shade to its murdered owner.


iii. Tree as Souvenir

I think how Springfield’s “Old Elms” (per my father’s
poem) turned streets to Gothic aisles that cooled
his boyhood afternoons, and wonder what his father

must’ve seen that night (“witnessed,” my dad told
me) and what magnet of sickness and hate
sucked my grandfather into the mob’s soiled

maw. Years later, Grandpa Pete would berate
the TV for sending Sammy Davis, Jr.
or any brown-skinned star into his white

domain. So see, can we say he was fever-
gripped all his days, capable of turning even a tree
into other? And did he take as souvenir

a chunk of elm to dust and display beside tea
cups, glass goblets, crystal from Germany?

iv. Concerning the Car

In a town full of horse-drawn buggies, few
cars: mark of class, only up-and-comers
had them. Loper, a restauranteur, knew

the risk, or did he? A man of commerce,
clout, at ease with “Negroes,” he’d lend
the sheriff his car. Before things got worse,

they’d flee the swelling, murderous band,
spirit Richardson, accused of rape, into the next
county. Far from “heinous” headlines, the errand

saved his life while robbed of its prey, the mob vexed
to rage, torched Black houses, dragged from their homes,
lynched Burton, the barber, Dunnegan, a cobbler, wrecked

Loper’s in the burning after. It consumes,
looms over me now, this legacy of flames.

~~~~

~~~

Author’s Note: In 2024, President Joe Biden designated a national monument at the site of the 1908 Springfield IL Race Riot. Today, on the US Department of Interior website, where a page on the riot has been removed, contains this language: “Any previously issued diversity, equity, inclusion or gender-related guidance on this webpage should be considered rescinded.” The description of the bronze memorial tree (part ii) is taken from a video found on the Springfield IL NAACP website detailing plans for a monument. The monument has yet to be built.

Poem copyright 2026 Terry Blackhawk

Terry Blackhawk is a teacher and poet. Her many books include One Less River (Mayapple Press, 2019).