To You Who Read My Book

SOON every sprinter, However fleet, Comes to a winter Of sure defeat: Though he may race Like the hunted doe, Time has a pace To lay him low. Soon we who sing, However high, Must face the Thing We cannot fly. Yea, though we fling Our notes to the sun, Time will outsing Us every one. All things must change As the wind is blown; Time will estrange The flesh from the bone. The dream shall elude The dreamer’s clasp, And only its hood Shall comfort his grasp. A little while, Too brief at most, And even my smile Will be a ghost. A little space, A Finger’s crook, And who shall trace The path I took? Who shall declare My whereabouts; Say if in the air My being shouts Along light ways, Or if in the sea, Or deep earth stays The germ of me? Ah, none knows, none, Save (but too well) The Cryptic One Who will not tell. This is my hour To wax and climb, Flaunt a red flower In the face of time. And only an hour Time gives, then snap Goes the flower, And dried is the sap. Juice of the first Grapes of my vine, I proffer your thirst My own heart’s wine. Here of my growing A red rose sways, Seed of my sowing, And work of my days. (I run, but time’s Abreast with me; I sing, but he climbs With my highest C.) Drink while my blood Colors the wine, Reach while the bud Is still on the vine.... Then ... When the hawks of death Tear at my throat Till song and breath Ebb note by note, Turn to this book Of the mellow word For a singing look At the stricken bird. Say, “This is the way He chirped and sung, In the sweet heyday When his heart was young. Though his throat is bare, By death defiled, Song labored there And bore a child.” When the dreadful Ax Rives me apart, When the sharp wedge cracks My arid heart, Turn to this book Of the singing me For a springtime look At the wintry tree. Say, “Thus it was weighed With flower and fruit, Ere the Ax was laid Unto its root. Though the blows fall free On a gnarled trunk now, Once he was a tree With a blossomy bough.”

I DOUBT not God is good, well-meaning, kind, And did He stoop to quibble could tell why The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die, Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus To struggle up a never-ending stair. Inscrutable His ways are, and immune To catechism by a mind too strewn With petty cares to slightly understand What awful brain compels His awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

YOU have not heard my love’s dark throat, Slow-fluting like a reed, Release the perfect golden note She caged there for my need. Her walk is like the replica Of some barbaric dance Wherein the soul of Africa Is winged with arrogance. And yet so light she steps across The ways her sure feet pass, She does not dent the smoothest moss Or bend the thinnest grass. My love is dark as yours is fair, Yet lovelier I hold her Than listless maids with pallid hair, And blood that’s thin and colder. You-proud-and-to-be-pitied one, Gaze on her and despair; Then seal your lips until the sun Discovers one as fair.

“AS surely as I hold your hand in mine, As surely as your crinkled hair belies The enamoured sun pretending that he dies While still he loiters in its glossy shine, As surely as I break the slender line That spider linked us with, in no least wise Am I uncertain that these alien skies Do not our whole life measure and confine. No less, once in a land of scarlet suns And brooding winds, before the hurricane Bore down upon us, long before this pain, We found a place where quiet water runs; I held your hand this way upon a hill, And felt my heart forebear, my pulse grow still.”

WITH two white roses on her breasts, White candles at head and feet, Dark Madonna of the grave she rests; Lord Death has found her sweet. Her mother pawned her wedding ring To lay her out in white; She’d be so proud she’d dance and sing To see herself tonight.

WHAT if his glance is bold and free, His mouth the lash of whips? So should the eyes of lovers be, And so a lover’s lips. What if no puritanic strain Confines him to the nice? He will not pass this way again, Nor hunger for you twice. Since in the end consort together Magdalen and Mary, Youth is the time for careless weather: Later, lass, be wary.

THAT brown girl’s swagger gives a twitch To beauty like a queen; Lad, never dam your body’s itch When loveliness is seen. For there is ample room for bliss In pride in clean, brown limbs, And lips know better how to kiss Than how to raise white hymns. And when your body’s death gives birth To soil for spring to crown, Men will not ask if that rare earth Was white flesh once, or brown.

THESE have no Christ to spit and stoop To write upon the sand, Inviting him that has not sinned To raise the first rude hand. And if he came they could not buy Rich ointment for his feet, The body’s sale scarce yields enough To let the body eat. The chaste clean ladies pass them by And draw their skirts aside, But Magdalens have a ready laugh; They wrap their wounds in pride. They fare full ill since Christ forsook The cross to mount a throne, And Virtue still is stooping down To cast the first hard stone.

WITH subtle poise he grips his tray Of delicate things to eat; Choice viands to their mouths half way, The ladies watch his feet Go carving dexterous avenues Through sly intricacies; Ten thousand years on jungle clues Alone shaped feet like these. For him to be humble who is proud Needs colder artifice; Though half his pride is disavowed, In vain the sacrifice. Sheer through his acquiescent mask Of bland gentility, The jungle flames like a copper cask Set where the sun strikes free.

AMBIGUOUS of race they stand, By one disowned, scorned of another, Not knowing where to stretch a hand, And cry, “My sister” or “My brother.”

LOCKED arm in arm they cross the way, The black boy and the white, The golden splendor of the day, The sable pride of night. From lowered blinds the dark folk stare, And here the fair folk talk, Indignant that these two should dare In unison to walk. Oblivious to look and word They pass, and see no wonder That lightning brilliant as a sword Should blaze the path of thunder.

THIS is not water running here, These thick rebellious streams That hurtle flesh and bone past fear Down alleyways of dreams. This is a wine that must flow on Not caring how nor where, So it has ways to flow upon Where song is in the air. So it can woo an artful flute With loose, elastic lips, Its measurement of joy compute With blithe, ecstatic hips.

HE never spoke a word to me, And yet He called my name; He never gave a sign to me, And yet I knew and came. At first I said, “I will not bear His cross upon my back; He only seeks to place it there Because my skin is black.” But He was dying for a dream, And He was very meek, And in His eyes there shone a gleam Men journey far to seek. It was Himself my pity bought; I did for Christ alone What all of Rome could not have wrought With bruise of lash or stone.

ONCE riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee, I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.” I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That’s all that I remember.

FROM where she stood the air she craved Smote with the smell of pine; It was too much to bear; she braved Her gods and crossed the line. And we were hurt to see her go, With her fair face and hair, And veins too thin and blue to show What mingled blood flowed there. We envied her a while, who still Pursued the hated track; Then we forgot her name, until One day her shade came back. Calm as a wave without a crest, Sorrow-proud and sorrow-wise, With trouble sucking at her breast, With tear-disdainful eyes, She slipped into her ancient place, And, no word asked, gave none; Only the silence in her face Said seats were dear in the sun.

HE rode across like a cavalier, Spurs clicking hard and loud; And where he tarried dropped his tear On heads he left low-bowed. But, “Even Stephen,” he cried, and struck His steed an urgent blow; He swore by youth he was a buck With savage oats to sow. To even up some standing scores, From every flower bed He passed, he plucked by threes and fours Till wheels whirled in his head. But long before the drug could tell, He took his anodyne; With scornful grace, he bowed farewell And retraversed the line.

SOME are teethed on a silver spoon, With the stars strung for a rattle; I cut my teeth as the black raccoon— For implements of battle. Some are swaddled in silk and down, And heralded by a star; They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown On a night that was black as tar. For some, godfather and goddame The opulent fairies be; Dame Poverty gave me my name, And Pain godfathered me. For I was born on Saturday— “Bad time for planting a seed,” Was all my father had to say, And, “One mouth more to feed.” Death cut the strings that gave me life, And handed me to Sorrow, The only kind of middle wife My folks could beg or borrow.

ALL night we danced upon our windy hill, Your dress a cloud of tangled midnight hair, And love was much too much for me to wear My leaves; the killer roared above his kill, But you danced on, and when some star would spill Its red and white upon you whirling there, I sensed a hidden beauty in the air; Though you danced on, my heart and I stood still. But suddenly a bit of morning crept Along your trembling sides of ebony; I saw the tears your tired limbs had wept, And how your breasts heaved high, how languidly Your dark arms moved; I drew you close to me; We flung ourselves upon our hill and slept.

NOT for myself I make this prayer, But for this race of mine That stretches forth from shadowed places Dark hands for bread and wine. For me, my heart is pagan mad, My feet are never still, But give them hearths to keep them warm In homes high on a hill. For me, my faith lies fallowing, I bow not till I see, But these are humble and believe; Bless their credulity. For me, I pay my debts in kind, And see no better way, Bless these who turn the other cheek For love of you, and pray. Our Father, God, our Brother, Christ— So are we taught to pray; Their kinship seems a little thing Who sorrow all the day. Our Father, God; our Brother, Christ, Or are we bastard kin, That to our plaints your ears are closed, Your doors barred from within? Our Father, God; our Brother, Christ, Retrieve my race again; So shall you compass this black sheep, This pagan heart. Amen.

NOW I am young and credulous, My heart is quick to bleed At courage in the tremulous Slow sprouting of a seed. Now I am young and sensitive, Man’s lack can stab me through; I own no stitch I would not give To him that asked me to. Now I am young and a fool for love, My blood goes mad to see A brown girl pass me like a dove That flies melodiously. Let me be lavish of my tears, And dream that false is true; Though wisdom cometh with the years, The barren days come, too.

THOUGH I score you with my best, Treble circumstance Must confirm the verdict, lest It be laid to chance. Insufficient that I match you Every coin you flip; Your demand is that I catch you Squarely on the hip. Should I wear my wreaths a bit Rakishly and proud, I have bought my right to it; Let it be allowed.

MY father is a quiet man With sober, steady ways; For simile, a folded fan; His nights are like his days. My mother’s life is puritan, No hint of cavalier, A pool so calm you’re sure it can Have little depth to fear. And yet my father’s eyes can boast How full his life has been; There haunts them yet the languid ghost Of some still sacred sin. And though my mother chants of God, And of the mystic river, I’ve seen a bit of checkered sod Set all her flesh aquiver. Why should he deem it pure mischance A son of his is fain To do a naked tribal dance Each time he hears the rain? Why should she think it devil’s art That all my songs should be Of love and lovers, broken heart, And wild sweet agony? Who plants a seed begets a bud, Extract of that same root; Why marvel at the hectic blood That flushes this wild fruit?

“LORD, being dark,” I said, “I cannot bear The further touch of earth, the scented air; Lord, being dark, forewilled to that despair My color shrouds me in, I am as dirt Beneath my brother’s heel; there is a hurt In all the simple joys which to a child Are sweet; they are contaminate, defiled By truths of wrongs the childish vision fails To see; too great a cost this birth entails. I strangle in this yoke drawn tighter than The worth of bearing it, just to be man. I am not brave enough to pay the price In full; I lack the strength to sacrifice. I who have burned my hands upon a star, And climbed high hills at dawn to view the far Illimitable wonderments of earth, For whom all cups have dripped the wine of mirth, For whom the sea has strained her honeyed throat Till all the world was sea, and I a boat Unmoored, on what strange quest I willed to float; Who wore a many-colored coat of dreams, Thy gift, O Lord—I whom sun-dabbled streams Have washed, whose bare brown thighs have held the sun Incarcerate until his course was run, I who considered man a high-perfected Glass where loveliness could lie reflected, Now that I sway athwart Truth’s deep abyss, Denuding man for what he was and is, Shall breath and being so inveigle me That I can damn my dreams to hell, and be Content, each new-born day, anew to see The steaming crimson vintage of my youth Incarnadine the altar-slab of Truth? Or hast Thou, Lord, somewhere I cannot see, A lamb imprisoned in a bush for me? Not so? Then let me render one by one Thy gifts, while still they shine; some little sun Yet gilds these thighs; my coat, albeit worn, Still holds its colors fast; albeit torn, My heart will laugh a little yet, if I May win of Thee this grace, Lord: on this high And sacrificial hill ’twixt earth and sky, To dream still pure all that I loved, and die. There is no other way to keep secure My wild chimeras; grave-locked against the lure Of Truth, the small hard teeth of worms, yet less Envenomed than the mouth of Truth, will bless Them into dust and happy nothingness. Lord, Thou art God; and I, Lord, what am I But dust? With dust my place. Lord, let me die.” Across the earth’s warm, palpitating crust I flung my body in embrace; I thrust My mouth into the grass and sucked the dew, Then gave it back in tears my anguish drew; So hard I pressed against the ground, I felt The smallest sandgrain like a knife, and smelt The next year’s flowering; all this to speed My body’s dissolution, fain to feed The worms. And so I groaned, and spent my strength Until, all passion spent, I lay full length And quivered like a flayed and bleeding thing. So lay till lifted on a great black wing That had no mate nor flesh-apparent trunk To hamper it; with me all time had sunk Into oblivion; when I awoke The wing hung poised above two cliffs that broke The bowels of the earth in twain, and cleft The seas apart. Below, above, to left, To right, I saw what no man saw before: Earth, hell, and heaven; sinew, vein, and core. All things that swim or walk or creep or fly, All things that live and hunger, faint and die, Were made majestic then and magnified By sight so clearly purged and deified. The smallest bug that crawls was taller than A tree, the mustard seed loomed like a man. The earth that writhes eternally with pain Of birth, and woe of taking back her slain, Laid bare her teeming bosom to my sight, And all was struggle, gasping breath, and fight. A blind worm here dug tunnels to the light, And there a seed, racked with heroic pain, Thrust eager tentacles to sun and rain; It climbed; it died; the old love conquered me To weep the blossom it would never be. But here a bud won light; it burst and flowered Into a rose whose beauty challenged, “Coward!” There was no thing alive save only I That held life in contempt and longed to die. And still I writhed and moaned, “The curse, the curse, Than animated death, can death be worse?” “Dark child of sorrow, mine no less, what art Of mine can make thee see and play thy part? The key to all strange things is in thy heart.” What voice was this that coursed like liquid fire Along my flesh, and turned my hair to wire? I raised my burning eyes, beheld a field All multitudinous with carnal yield, A grim ensanguined mead whereon I saw Evolve the ancient fundamental law Of tooth and talon, fist and nail and claw. There with the force of living, hostile hills Whose clash the hemmed-in vale with clamor fills, With greater din contended fierce majestic wills Of beast with beast, of man with man, in strife For love of what my heart despised, for life That unto me at dawn was now a prayer For night, at night a bloody heart-wrung tear For day again; for this, these groans From tangled flesh and interlockèd bones. And no thing died that did not give A testimony that it longed to live. Man, strange composite blend of brute and god, Pushed on, nor backward glanced where last he trod. He seemed to mount a misty ladder flung Pendant from a cloud, yet never gained a rung But at his feet another tugged and clung. My heart was still a pool of bitterness, Would yield nought else, nought else confess. I spoke (although no form was there To see, I knew an ear was there to hear), “Well, let them fight; they can whose flesh is fair.” Crisp lightning flashed; a wave of thunder shook My wing; a pause, and then a speaking, “Look.” I scarce dared trust my ears or eyes for awe Of what they heard, and dread of what they saw; For, privileged beyond degree, this flesh Beheld God and His heaven in the mesh Of Lucifer’s revolt, saw Lucifer Glow like the sun, and like a dulcimer I heard his sin-sweet voice break on the yell Of God’s great warriors: Gabriel, Saint Clair and Michael, Israfel and Raphael. And strange it was to see God with His back Against a wall, to see Christ hew and hack Till Lucifer, pressed by the mighty pair, And losing inch by inch, clawed at the air With fevered wings; then, lost beyond repair, He tricked a mass of stars into his hair; He filled his hands with stars, crying as he fell, “A star’s a star although it burns in hell.” So God was left to His divinity, Omnipotent at that most costly fee. There was a lesson here, but still the clod In me was sycophant unto the rod, And cried, “Why mock me thus? Am I a god?” “One trial more: this failing, then I give You leave to die; no further need to live.” Now suddenly a strange wild music smote A chord long impotent in me; a note Of jungles, primitive and subtle, throbbed Against my echoing breast, and tom-toms sobbed In every pulse-beat of my frame. The din A hollow log bound with a python’s skin Can make wrought every nerve to ecstasy, And I was wind and sky again, and sea, And all sweet things that flourish, being free. Till all at once the music changed its key. And now it was of bitterness and death, The cry the lash extorts, the broken breath Of liberty enchained; and yet there ran Through all a harmony of faith in man, A knowledge all would end as it began. All sights and sounds and aspects of my race Accompanied this melody, kept pace With it; with music all their hopes and hates Were charged, not to be downed by all the fates. And somehow it was borne upon my brain How being dark, and living through the pain Of it, is courage more than angels have. I knew What storms and tumults lashed the tree that grew This body that I was, this cringing I That feared to contemplate a changing sky, This that I grovelled, whining, “Let me die,” While others struggled in Life’s abattoir. The cries of all dark people near or far Were billowed over me, a mighty surge Of suffering in which my puny grief must merge And lose itself; I had no further claim to urge For death; in shame I raised my dust-grimed head, And though my lips moved not, God knew I said, “Lord, not for what I saw in flesh or bone Of fairer men; not raised on faith alone; Lord, I will live persuaded by mine own. I cannot play the recreant to these; My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.” With the whiz of a sword that severs space, The wing dropped down at a dizzy pace, And flung me on my hill flat on my face; Flat on my face I lay defying pain, Glad of the blood in my smallest vein, And in my hands I clutched a loyal dream, Still spitting fire, bright twist and coil and gleam, And chiselled like a hound’s white tooth. “Oh, I will match you yet,” I cried, “to truth.” Right glad I was to stoop to what I once had spurned, Glad even unto tears; I laughed aloud; I turned Upon my back, and though the tears for joy would run, My sight was clear; I looked and saw the rising sun.

WHAT is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang? One three centuries removed From the scenes his fathers loved, Spicy grove, cinnamon tree, What is Africa to me? So I lie, who all day long Want no sound except the song Sung by wild barbaric birds Goading massive jungle herds, Juggernauts of flesh that pass Trampling tall defiant grass Where young forest lovers lie, Plighting troth beneath the sky. So I lie, who always hear, Though I cram against my ear Both my thumbs, and keep them there, Great drums throbbing through the air. So I lie, whose fount of pride, Dear distress, and joy allied, Is my somber flesh and skin, With the dark blood dammed within Like great pulsing tides of wine That, I fear, must burst the fine Channels of the chafing net Where they surge and foam and fret. Africa? A book one thumbs Listlessly, till slumber comes. Unremembered are her bats Circling through the night, her cats Crouching in the river reeds, Stalking gentle flesh that feeds By the river brink; no more Does the bugle-throated roar Cry that monarch claws have leapt From the scabbards where they slept. Silver snakes that once a year Doff the lovely coats you wear, Seek no covert in your fear Lest a mortal eye should see; What’s your nakedness to me? Here no leprous flowers rear Fierce corollas in the air; Here no bodies sleek and wet, Dripping mingled rain and sweat, Tread the savage measures of Jungle boys and girls in love. What is last year’s snow to me, Last year’s anything? The tree Budding yearly must forget How its past arose or set— Bough and blossom, flower, fruit, Even what shy bird with mute Wonder at her travail there, Meekly labored in its hair. One three centuries removed From the scenes his fathers loved, Spicy grove, cinnamon tree, What is Africa to me? So I lie, who find no peace Night or day, no slight release From the unremittant beat Made by cruel padded feet Walking through my body’s street. Up and down they go, and back, Treading out a jungle track. So I lie, who never quite Safely sleep from rain at night— I can never rest at all When the rain begins to fall; Like a soul gone mad with pain I must match its weird refrain; Ever must I twist and squirm, Writhing like a baited worm, While its primal measures drip Through my body, crying, “Strip! Doff this new exuberance. Come and dance the Lover’s Dance!” In an old remembered way Rain works on me night and day. Quaint, outlandish heathen gods Black men fashion out of rods, Clay, and brittle bits of stone, In a likeness like their own, My conversion came high-priced; I belong to Jesus Christ, Preacher of humility; Heathen gods are naught to me. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, So I make an idle boast; Jesus of the twice-turned cheek, Lamb of God, although I speak With my mouth thus, in my heart Do I play a double part. Ever at Thy glowing altar Must my heart grow sick and falter, Wishing He I served were black, Thinking then it would not lack Precedent of pain to guide it, Let who would or might deride it; Surely then this flesh would know Yours had borne a kindred woe. Lord, I fashion dark gods, too, Daring even to give You Dark despairing features where, Crowned with dark rebellious hair, Patience wavers just so much as Mortal grief compels, while touches Quick and hot, of anger, rise To smitten cheek and weary eyes. Lord, forgive me if my need Sometimes shapes a human creed. All day long and all night through, One thing only must I do: Quench my pride and cool my blood, Lest I perish in the flood. Lest a hidden ember set Timber that I thought was wet Burning like the dryest flax, Melting like the merest wax, Lest the grave restore its dead. Not yet has my heart or head In the least way realized They and I are civilized.