slip shoulders. Rise & fall & rise beyond
the place, I tried alone to let alone, even
inch by inch, then faced bringing back

to attention. The grounding here & now,
day by day the whereabouts of giant forms —
nights I swore, because I thought

color could rally injustice. Chapters I sat
with my eyes on the floor. I tried
not looking to see everything, stopped

hearing the conflict, the delta,
the galaxy of spiral arms, the gravity
of God. There’s been no true deliverance.

Limbs network roots, their crosses grow
in liberty. Small lives exist; decay.
No one owns the damage. Leaves turn red;

sun shelters steam, the cold returns
brutalities. Hard magic splits the earth & seed.
A new religion blooms on banks. I try to lose

the stench of rot, the bloat of loam
grown black. Children play diversions,
track-&-field events. The hopscotch lines

of body, chalk, get lost, come home, get lost,
come home between two houses, doors.
Make believe heroes draw swords in the dust,

the harmony of guns, the pop, pop, pop
of firework, lights, another Roman candle.

Children stir to liveliness as others sleep on soundly.
Men stumble from doors & go missing, move
toward futures, unknown. Time & again we begin

full of sun, come within reach of today,
as seedlings grow, the stars go on unfinished
& the long approach of footsteps
resolves itself on ancient stones.

You can blow out a candle
But you can’t blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja

-The man is dead
And the eyes of the world are
watching now
watching now

—Peter Gabriel

l. albatross

above this grave of whale,
above this grace they navigate
no further than their sails.

inveigh their arcane arrogate
below a sky the clouds amuse,
no greater than this wind.

in all their hymns, a herring &
yet these piebald stones remain
provender to their beck & call

motes unfit
for leading lines or drama:
this mettlesome they buffet
against each curve,
each printless wave,
against the sand, the sea

as if expanses limitless
exist to give their offspring homes
as if they own the shore.

ll. seashell

at night these ebbs breathe out
then in, as if their patience spills
a sigh upon the habitué
a song among the denizen

all things seashell

& yet

tonight the tide leaves broken
inside a curl without a word. remains.

where were you then
between the hours
this timeless supposititious
shedding cosmos through the stars
into the sun, these lessons.

what aegis failed — seashell,
where were you then,

today?

lll. stones

a cairn sits, pervicacious,
almost as if a chrysalis
against adumbrate secrets,
too fatuous to mourn the spates:

that tête-à-tête of breeze & sea
which manifests concentric storms
then spirals on
until an explicate withdraws;
until its lost position.

verisimilitude, perhaps
for some, all edges lie in; wait
like stairways piled into the light
& some of us: too tired to crawl
might scuttle to their harbor
where barnacles embrace the kelp

as if we crave some velvet touch,
as if our eyes bleed salt.

lV. sand

these hands:
these tools that build with blocks
with wood,
these hands which fashion castles
would bind you in imprison, form,
as if arm’s art might expiate
this whispering relentless.

& still your heterogeneous slips
through hoary hours, the infinite
inside these eyes, this glass
erasing each impression
each foolish view confute inspires
before it slides homogenous
into the dawn; a day.

V. waves

back & forth you come & go;
such splendid concatenation
suspended in surcease — begin
with vagary, unmatched.

so boldly supercilious
fortuitous, it mostly seems
as if these tides can swell a man
into a moon, a God
then tumble him peremptory
into a weed, a cell

each single sui generis
robustious surges in a babe,

in frothy whips — in tongues
into this place; this life
before you crash them chary
against recede’s renege.

returning them as trophies, shells
which sing of things the eyes eschew
an animus beyond these wades
through hollowness & promises
more magic than their bones.

they say it has to be,
seashell,
but I do not believe.

his hooves
have ground the sand before
to steed the vestal beach
as always it seems, Evangeline
& now once more—because
Usiku rained hunger in bowls
too full for her Afrikan waves.

II. AS IT WERE

how similar now is today,
how similar then are the winds.
always that damnable
damnable
—wind
from the mouth
of the mighty St.Lawrence
to the shores of the great Pontchartrain
it seems your steps—to a current;
unclaimed by attrition, purl
knit to the primeval hemlocks
Na-Gah rests with grazing eyes
& ions flash as spirit dance.

O! how awash
you would break now
to see how some desire—despise
how easy they’ll caste you
—to storms!

III. AS IS WILLED

still that Atchafalaya waits,
as it does
as it did, as you know
because grace charms; Evangeline,
because—that grace—disarms
(even in buggered salvation)

when classes refuse degradation
bayous wear new—el collar de estrellas
unable to witness discord

beneath the sweet sassafras. leaves,
another roux seasoned; stirred,
sweated thick gumbo—
by blood chains & slaves
for these: shadows
will pass (as we do)
jazz into blues; the remains,
a cycle then,
in cycle now
from water—to heaven—to dust.

IV. AS IT MAY

where does God go
when the softest skirts rise
(there, South in Eden)
when virgin Live Oaks throw down arms
deflowered; demossed,
yes—defiled
& bold waves tongue the cypress wet
too high above such knees.

how fertile with cost
is confession
how serpentine the thrust of greed
(but this we know too well!)
& still they scrub filthy
conscience clean: de armiño
still!
they would wash
—you away
in accordance of course,
with their hell.

They sing of hope and glory,
anesthetizing violence,
dressed up in black and white.

We must hold our tongues
between the explanations,
rise up, sit down, rise up
in orchestrated rows.

The older ones go first,
equipped with metaphors.
Then come the small, hands nervous,
each practicing their part.

Proud to be of use,
their innocence too solemn,
collected, as it is.

We watch them with the clock,
observe the measured silence,
gather a pittance of time
then file out one by one

as the last post plays,
and then amazing grace.

On Sunday they’ll wear poppies,
by Monday they’ll forget.

And its rashness to bring forth acquaintance
In an instant. It’s not the nonexistent truth
But the laborious awakening

Expression. And if we contradict too much
One of us will ramble off, the cautious interchange
Of learning, of conversion, vanishing

Until it becomes the artless echo
Of another smothered sound. I mention this over
And over; the place we go again

To crawl in the indifferent space
Of corners, squirreling blue hyacinth
And grass; the grace of spaced out green

My lungs inhaled and ached for admiration;
The space where worn-out countryside becomes
A dear metropolis. These precious spots

Do not withdraw in silence, and it may well be
Will not lay still. The way we learn to loathe
Our account, only to follow the motion

One by one, away into the headland
And the distant smile of strangers holding tell tale signs
They have been looking too long at the outcome

Of a gradual decline.

Impatient, this thing we inhabit.
The steady going onward, a magnitude and general

Thought comes across no homeland.
When I step to the start of it all

I might find you and stretch out
The little of me that is strong

Toward winding up. In view of the fact
Our journey here began from one foundation,

The undermind of lineage, far away back there,
From there where roots still keep

And watch. What I desire now
Is how we stirred as nothing ever dreamt

Before. The wordless weight; my breath

Inside your heat, the interweave of limbs

Revolved around each other
As if we fit collectively. Our hands

Within a steeple, tangled close and looking
For familiar ground. A waterway of song

Getting used to beauty as the last position
Left for those who’ve struggled hard, as if

Caught in this difficult posture,
No longer lost and lingering in leaves,

We cannot come apart.