I'll See You Again

God willin’

if the creek don’t rise,

I’ll see you again.

Tho’ you weren’t ever mine to hold,

you held my name, 

called it out for strangers to hear-

it didn’t mean much to me then,

but now, as time has passed,

I find that you weren’t lying.

I can feel it most days

even though you’re gone.

It beats in a step next to my stride;

I’ve lost the details and sense that I knew it all;

but the big feeling, the one that you sent 

when you shouted my name,

breathes. The diaphragm draws in and out

beating the rhythm of us.

And if the creek don’t rise,

I’ll hear you say my name next to me.

God willin’, I’ll see you again.

Dialogue

I got out and slipped right back,

you hav'ta have your pipe on the corner-

no ball playing in the alley no more ‘s not safe.

You got to get a job. Maybe you need a job.

I gotta job,

wen to school, bro

still had time-

too much time-

forgot my plan to

stay off the block.

You need to move off the block.

Nah, it’s where I feel comfortable.

I wanna make it better for my people,

give ‘em something that stops the slip;

problem is … there’s not enuf on the block,

the pipe and weed pull you back in.

I’m gonna be a boxer … be on tv,

don’t you want to do something that makes you famous?

Nah, I usta think that I wanted that …

everybody in the hood wants to be a rapper, movie star, basketball player, football player;

tha’s only four things … there’s more things that people from the hood can do-

why aren’t there black doctors? black lawyers?

why isn’t there black anything ‘cept those 4 things and the block?

Not gonna be your block much longer…

got a Starbuck’s bro.

They ain’t in the hood bro-

no way, they ain’t.

They are gonna buy it out like they did in other neighborhoods.

How bro? Families live in them houses.

They gonna move them all out?

Yeah.

No way, bro.

There’s always gonna be a hood,

but we can make it better for us-

keep the shorties busy.

But didn’t you come back here after saying you weren’t going to?

I’m 18 soon-

with a clean slate-

gotta move forward.

I might catch a case again-

maybe when I’m 25 … I don’t know,

but I want to go back to the block

where I’m comfortable.

I want to make it better for my community-

stop the slide.

Closed Door

A draft picks up dust

under the threshold

rummaging across

a hardwood floor

as light peers into cracks

of a door bolted shut;

built stoically

to ward off elements,

frozen or blazen,

energy still manages

to enter the room

where he is not.

For many months,

the only barrier

between hearth and sky

had been the framed screen

that allowed fresh air in

and kept bugs out;

which wind blew that

slammed the door shut

is hard to pinpoint-

but the heavy carved oak

hinged on rust, cooperated

in this particular separation.

Back up against it,

the quiet takes over

leaning hard on me;

the outside attempts

to rustle up memories

I fail to forget.

Roundabouts

The car skipped the circle

turning left hard

against the traffic-

I watched it

and let it pass.

Out of the way,

I turned into the curve

letting my body

pull into the low level

centrifugal force;

the turn was familiar

and too soon I longed

for repeated rounds

on a road that continued

in straight, not curved, lines.

Blue Bird

Even in its

turn West against

summer storm fronts,

blue soared - climbing

across a dome

of azure bright;

calm settled as

clouds dissipated,

breezes dallied;

life lived lightly-

wholeheartedly

in divine light.

The Moon in the Sky Hung Heavy Still

Traveling North between the rise and fall,

morning struggled to pull night down as

the moon in the sky hung heavy still;

like moods that can shift between constant

and sundry, the atmosphere positioned

formidable forces against each other:

in the East, the sun climbed through

lavender and freshly laundered clouds

hung out in observance of the solstice;

while in the West, in its slag to finish its job,

still drunk from a rabble rouse with night,

blue skies framed the crater’d hanger on’r.

Driving through a kind of no man’s land,

the ghost light drowning stayed lit for me

doggedly begging off the invitation to leave

as day offered no comfort when the light

would invariably succumb to a longer night

than that pushed out of its path yesterday.

After I'm Gone

Green shoots push through

dirt muddied with winter debris-

broken branches - bark shards

soiled leaves - dried flowers

seed shells left by squirrels who

scam the garage’s bird feeder;

lukewarm sink water stains the lean,

gazing out the kitchen window

hoping to catch spring hatching

like the wet, yellow chickadees

that fight through their eggshell

under the museum’s heat lamps;

the hardy petal promised

should conquer April’s frost-

fight off the hawk that preys

on winter’s tight fisted hold

burying the brown lawn

in sand-like ice and snow,

but they hide from me,

when chores are done-

even after I’m gone.