Collected Poems Read Free Page B

end nor total loss
    if we should go to it striding
    the dirge of the soulful
abia
drums….
    But beware soul brother
    of the lures of ascension day
    the day of soporific levitation
    on high winds of skysong; beware
    for others there will be that day
    lying in wait leaden-footed, tone-deaf
    passionate only for the deep entrails
    of our soil; beware of the day
    we head truly skyward leaving
    that spoil to the long ravenous tooth
    and talon of their hunger.
    Our ancestors, soul brother, were wiser
    than is often made out. Remember
    they gave Ala, great goddess
    of their earth, sovereignty too over
    their arts for they understood
    so well those hardheaded
    men of departed dance where a man's
    foot must return whatever beauties
    it may weave in air, where
    it must return for safety
    and renewal of strength. Take care
    then, mother's son, lest you become
    a dancer disinherited in mid-dance
    hanging a lame foot in air like the hen
    in a strange unfamiliar compound. Pray
    protect this patrimony to which
    you must return when the song
    is finished and the dancers disperse;
    remember also your children
    for they in their time will want
    a place for their feet when
    they come of age and the dance
    of the future is born
    for them.
NON-commitment
    Hurrah! to them who do nothing
    see nothing feel nothing whose
    hearts are fitted with prudence
    like a diaphragm across
    womb's beckoning doorway to bar
    the scandal of seminal rage. I'm
    told the owl too wears wisdom
    in a ring of defense round
    each vulnerable eye securing it fast
    against the darts of sight. Long ago
    in the Middle East Pontius Pilate
    openly washed involvement off his
    white hands and became famous. (Of all
    the Roman officials before him and after
    who else is talked about
    every Sunday in the Apostles' Creed?) And
    talking of apostles that other fellow
    Judas wasn't such a fool
    either; though much maligned by
    succeeding generations the fact remains
    he alone in that motley crowd
    had sense enough to tell a doomed
    movement when he saw one
    and get out quick, a nice little
    packet bulging his coat pocket
    into the bargain—sensible fellow.
    September 1970
Generation Gap
    A son's arrival
    is the crescent moon
    too new too soon to lodge
    the man's returning. His
    feast of reincarnation
    must await the moon's
    ripening at the naming
    ceremony of his
    grandson.
Misunderstanding
    My old man had a little saying
    he loved and as he neared
    his end was prone to relish
    more and more. Wherever Something
    stands, he'd say there also Something
    Else will stand. Heedless at first
    I waved it aside as mere
    elderly prattle that youth have to bear
    till sharply one day it hit home to me
    that never before, not even
    once, did I hear mother speak
    again in their little disputes once
    he'd said it. From then began
    my long unrest: what was this
    Thing so unanswerable and why
    was it dogged by that
    relentless Other? My mother
    proved no help at all nor did
    my father whose sole reply
    was just a solemn smile…. Quietly
    later of its own will it showed
    its face, so slowly, to me though
    not before they'd long been dead—my
    little old man and my mother
    also—and showed me too how
    utterly vain my private quest
    had been. Flushed by success
    I spoke one day in a trifling
    row: you see, my darling (to
    my wife) where Something
    stands—no matter what—there
    Something Else will take its
    stand. I knew, she said; she
    pouted her lips like a gun
    in my face. She knew, she said,
    she'd known all along of that
    other woman I was keeping in town.
    And I fear, my friends,
    I am yet to hear
    the last of it.
Knowing Robs Us
    Knowing robs us of wonder.
    Had it not ripped apart
    the fearful robes of primordial Night
    to steal the design that crafted horns
    on doghead and sowed insurrection
    overnight in the homely beak
    of a hen; had reason not given us
    assurance that day will daily break
    and the sun's array return to disarm
    night's fantastic figurations—
    each daybreak
    would be