The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (10 page)

Your laughter, pealing tall
above the bells of ruined cathedrals.
Children reach between your teeth
for charts to live their lives.
A stomp of feet. A bevy of swift hands.

His soul curdled
standing milk
childhood's right gone wrong.

Plum-blue skin brown dusted
eyes black shining.
(His momma didn't want him.)

The round head slick silk
Turn-around, fall-down curls.
Old ladies smelling of flour
and talcum powder, Cashmere Bouquet, said
“This child is pretty enough to be a girl.”
(But his momma didn't want him.)

John J. grinned a “How can you resist me?”
and danced to conjure lightning from
a morning's summer sky.
Gave the teacher an apple kiss.
(But his momma didn't want him.)

His nerves stretched two thousand miles
found a flinging singing lady,
breasting a bar
calling straights on the dice,
gin over ice,
and the 30's version of
everybody in the
pool.

After Eli Whitney's gin
brought to generations’ end
bartered flesh and broken bones
Did it cleanse you of your sin
Did you ponder?

Now, when farmers bury wheat
and the cow men dump the sweet
butter down on Davy Jones
Does it sanctify your street
Do you wonder?

Or is guilt your nightly mare
bucking wake your evenings’ share
of the stilled repair of groans
and the absence of despair
over yonder?

My Fathers sit on benches
their flesh counts every plank
the slats leave dents of darkness
deep in their withered flanks.

They nod like broken candles
 all waxed and burnt profound
 they say “It's understanding
that makes the world go round.”

There in those pleated faces
 I see the auction block
 the chains and slavery's coffles
the whip and lash and stock.

My Fathers speak in voices
that shred my fact and sound
they say “It's our submission
that makes the world go round.”

They used the finest cunning
 their naked wits and wiles
 the lowly Uncle Tomming
and Aunt Jemimas’ smiles.

They've laughed to shield their crying
  then shuffled through their dreams and
 stepped ‘n’ fetched a country
to write the blues with screams.

I understand their meaning
 it could and did derive
 from living on the edge of death
They kept my race alive.

Father,
I wait for you in oceans
tides washing pyramids high
above my head.
Waves, undulating
corn rows around my
black feet.
The heavens shift and
stars find holes set
new in dark infirmity.
My search goes on.
Dainty shells on ash-like wrists
of debutantes remember you.
Childhood's absence has
not stilled your
voice. My ear
listens. You whisper
on the watery passage.

Deep dirges moan
from the
belly of the sea
and your song
floats to me
of lost savannahs
green and
drums. Of palm trees bending
woman-like swaying
grape-blue children
laugh on beaches
of sand as
white as your bones
clean
on the foot of
long-ago waters.

Father.
I wait for you
wrapped in
the entrails of
whales. Your
blood now
blues
spume
over
the rippled
surface of our
grave.

When you see them
on a freeway hitching rides
wearing beads
with packs by their sides
you ought to ask
What's all the
warring and the jarring
and the
killing and
the thrilling
all about.

Take Time Out.

When you see him
with a band around his head
and an army surplus bunk
that makes his bed
you'd better ask
What's all the
beating and
the cheating and
the bleeding and
the needing
all about.

Take Time Out.

When you see her walking
barefoot in the rain
and you know she's tripping
on a one-way train
you need to ask
What's all the
lying and the
dying and
the running and
the gunning
all about.

Take Time Out.

Use a minute
feel some sorrow
for the folks
who think tomorrow
is a place that they
can call up
on the phone.
Take a month
and show some kindness
for the folks
who thought that blindness
was an illness that
affected eyes alone.

If you know that youth
is dying on the run
and my daughter trades
dope stories with your son
we'd better see
what all our
fearing and our
jeering and our
crying and
our lying
brought about.

Take Time Out.

I lie down in my grave
and watch my children
grow
Proud blooms
above the weeds of death.

Their petals wave
and still nobody
knows the soft black
dirt that is my winding
sheet. The worms, my friends,
yet tunnel holes in
bones and through those
apertures I see the rain.
The sunfelt warmth
now jabs
within my space and
brings me roots of my
children born.

Their seeds must fall
and press beneath
this earth,
and find me where
I wait. My only need to
fertilize their birth.

I lie down in my grave
and watch my children
grow.

How often must we
butt to head
Mind to ass
flank to nuts
cock to elbow
hip to toe
soul to shoulder
confront ourselves
in our past.

Ain't nobody better'n my Daddy,
you keep yo’ quauter,
I ain't yo’ daughter,
Ain't nobody better'n my Daddy.