River Crossing
for Langston Hughes
My descent
is to the South.
And it makes my pen itch
with anxiety.
For I have spent days
holding my breath
rattling alongside
white faces only
to enter a world of
brown.
I am following your gridwork
like a good son with
similar coloring.
But I know I would map
out those lines
ineffectually on large blue
carbonized paper.
You cannot edit mistakes like that.
I could have
been the man who connected
our two lives with this railway.
But the heat of that work
makes me want to undo my collar
and then never wear one again.
And instead, I will write pages,
for you.
Pages covered with stories
made of the black
and the white.
It will fill the time while, I,
a man of 18, come with news
of how I plan on charting my life.
I will write pages for you, Father,
will you read them?
This is what I wish to do-
This, is my livelihood.
Black letters rising,
escaping, transcending,
and then transmuting
to gold on the
barren, blank,
white page.
Why do you abhor us?
Sadness filling me,
I am remembering how you refuse to even attempt
an Exodus.
Your brown desert is a cut and dry refuge
from a world of black and white.
Maybe I was the one
who received the
sacraficial gene.
One that apparently
skips a generation.
and while you cower
in that shroud of denial,
remember that yours is not
covered with bloodstains
and bullet holes.
Excuse me, Father,
I must spend the last few
hours, busy at work.
The black blood
coursing through the
vein of my pen.
Escaping to,
and then from,
the two-sided
whiteness of you.
I, the Negro,
must Speak of Rivers
and crossing them.
Monday, April 12, 2010
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Reach for the clouds. . .
Tickle your toes. . .
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RICK: Hey Rick? DICK: Yea, Dick? RICK: See that sky roll on by? (points) DICK: ...Oh, my... RICK: Don't i-t'almost makes yer wanner....
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there ain't no other place like you to roam. where I dug in my heels and said "No, I won't come home!" Dancing in the warb...
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hunger is sometimes preferable to loneliness. a stomach will twist- but hands become dirty and heavy when full of coins.
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Another Indian woman living on our block has hair swept back and braided has jeweled toes, is in all yellow traditional regalia, and walks w...
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like me- it serves as a question as well as an appropriately foolish letter in bad company it only teams up with words like yodel, ...
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driving home from the farmer's market- I can't see anything- through this storm- I come home to sleep- with you-rest in your arms fu...
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motionless sap. ogling your shadow, you have much thinking to do. has the potassium kicked you in the arse yet-and got you going? you a...
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Out the window, I thought I saw Emily pale, gawking. a green T-shirt. bouncing firey springs on her head.
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nipped at the ankles which is how I wander through life sometimes I must be pushed through a door finally opened after years of knock...
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Tickling toes- there was something about that barefooted madness something about that wistful waist-high wishing and wooshing in the woods, ...
wonderful. ugh, Langston. so good. love it. <3
ReplyDeleteaw, Dana, thanks so much. <3
ReplyDeleteI never know the people who you write poems for (or enough about them to understand the poems) but I love love love two parts of this poem especially.
ReplyDelete"I will write pages for you, Father,
will you read them?
This is what I wish to do-
This, is my livelihood."
and
"The black blood
coursing through the
vein of my pen."
I hope the poems work to introduce you to them, if you don't know much going into it...
ReplyDeleteThat's how they work as stand alone. I hope that is the case.