Why this Dancing?
After Tracy K. Smith
Do your feet do anything other than walk?
Do you paint your toes red to keep them happy?
Do you know what a drum can do?
Does a 6/8 rhythm lead your hips to sway?
Does clave make your heels bounce?
What taps on your heart?
Have you ever been carried by a melody?
Do you know the meaning of joy?
Turns
It’s bedeviling, how
an image turns into an onion.
The onion slides into the Bay
The Bay into the Golden Gate.
The Gate into a searchlight
Shining from “the Rock,”
Not Duane, but Alcatraz
Turns into a barge,
That floats beside the
partially dismantled bridge,
Which becomes salt water,
being paddled
to the rhythm of
crickets singing
Harbingers
These survivors aren’t interested
In what we think of them.
Screaming from the highest branches,
Black feathers glinting in afternoon light,
Instigating standoffs with squirrels in
parking lots for peanut trophies.
Perching on rooftops, telephone poles
Announcing their presence loudly.
“We know, we know”
“What you don’t, you don’t”
“We know, we know”
“What you don’t, you don’t”
We see screeching nuisances
reminding us we’re squatters.
We cover our ears,
Wonder when they'll leave.
“We’re warning you, be still,
Slow down.”
“We’re warning you, be still,
Slow down.”
We look for maps of places
We can’t return to
“No time to not listen,
No time to ignore.”
“No time to not listen,
No time to ignore.”
We say, “there is not enough”
Black wings sing:
“Be still.”
