Den mother

for maya angelou apr 4, 1928/ may 28, 2014

 

 

 

There are badges given for the tying of different kind of knots.

Blakes hitch, schwabish,

though my fingers never moved me

past the square knot

 

that interminable thing you do with

twisting brown adolescence. How is nobility

in an eight year old measured  anyway other

than by the way he holds his hands? The

mythological fires he brings

 

in that liking journey of a thousand miles, lost?

I have heard of that St Louis Marguerite, yet

when I saw the bough alone, shall I not remember

the face of spare parts:

 

soul and brown gums scrunched,

secrets, the maples spilled. Eyes that

spun around like the fog in a photographic negative.

I knew just by the hoofs

 

of the birds, how they gather whole and unrelenting.

Slippery cracked lips that knew presidents,

sung songs to brushwood kings. Den mother

of petal, needle leaflet hats,

 

of delightsome colors flung to wind

and  dew and primeval god. Poetess of

evidence and blues. How you displayed your

feelings thusly (whispering now)

'when being Black was a secret willingness'.

 

And like Whitman that belief in demons, the denseness

of camp fires burning, burning, Watts, Newark!

When poetry is denouement,

the sweet outcomes of complexity;

when right strips away all other pretense

 

and when "nobody can make it here alone"

I know now that that caged bird has sung

and to eternity

 

sings.

Reviews

[W.k.kortas]

You know, thw whole homage/in memoriam thing is tricky damn business. There are so many bad things that can happen--you can end up with some damn Wikipedia entry, or some soppy gushing fan letter, or something that ends up being all about the author with a passing reference to one who has just passed. This is how it's done right--there is intimacy, and there is all the imagery one cna ask from any poem, and it shows how Angelou, like any poet worth his or her salt, is important becasue they reach so many in so many different ways and means, and this piece sings indeed amen.

[writing mojo]

Wow..the collective SHE in HER time table deafening surpassed the sound of colors through this piece inspired by passing Maya in her spoken out a dress...amazing piece friend

[Tam Warink]

I think she is smiling... no, I know she is. This isn't a mere "channeling" of one that has passed. It is a communion of spirit and of style and of message. It plucks at those things within a person that should rightly be sounded out and chorused with the nature of the human spirit. Splendid. Really.

[Cory Barrett]

My goodness this is everything worth writing. Fantastic portrait of a beautiful, rigid, and strong life.

[Rosalind Gale]

What a mesmerizing poem. Color, heart, essence, all the hidden truths of Maya, I read much of her, one thing I loved dearly was her sparkling sense of humor. You make words into wonderful sounds my dear Dana.
Rosie
-x-

[Ken Simm.]

There are very few who can use words steeped in tradition and yet with such a range of subtle nuances. And use them so well. You are one of those ever decreasing few.