The poem yields meanings fairly openly. Just start by asking yourself how many meanings of the word “cross” you know. The speaker’s language is informal; for example, “my old man” as slang for “father” has been around a long time. In the light of A Course in Miracles, the mystery and the joy of the poem appear in the next five lines where we hear about the forgiveness the speaker has achieved: he says he’s sorry, and he takes back his curses. Forgiveness is our function here, forgiveness and at-one-ment. The speaker’s black mother and his white father ended up as they lived, separated, the father in a “fine big house,” the black mother in a shack. The speaker contemplates his own mortality and the puzzle of his life and death, “Being neither white nor black.” The unstated implication seems to be there is no place for him, no place to live or die. He is apart from both races, completely alone. The speaker achieves forgiveness but does not recognize his at-one-ment. ACIM show us that instead of seeing his biraciality as neither race, we can, perception cleansed, choose to see it as an embodiment of both, a unity reflecting the true beauty of Love’s creativity. The Cross viewed with clear eyes is not a burden but a unification and resurrection, heaven and earth at one.