No migratory bird, you never flew
north
tor boreal drafts and artificial heat,
but chose to suffer your dying
where you suffered your living--
in the rooted red soil of a Mississipi
backwood. You knew that sun, you said.
In this modern house there is no
mantel
deep enough to hold your photograph.
But never mind, I keep your face--predawn black,
lined as aged oak laid bare--circles
within circles of wisdom
smoke-brown eyes steady, resolute.
How I watched you then
with my little girl's greedy eyes!
Working in the field,
straightening your back now and then
resting the hoe, stubby hands folded
on the cracked handle, wide feet planted
deep in Mississippi mud
head lifted upward against a dull rainbow
your small black ghost of a body
caught in the pale hues, in the field,
the great blue sky, and you.
Such a face burns to a crisp
the artist's hunger
the romantic brush.
You would teach your children to
live
in a world the preacher prayed
to overcome. You would teach them
to broaden that minister's mouth
that passageway to heaven.
"You'd better think," you warned,
"Beware the forked tongue.
Hold the eyes with a fixed stare no
liar's gaze can break. Keep a whetstone
sharpen your own knives. Beat
the early path with a big stick.
And do go near the water
dive in when you must
just know the strokes of a tadpole.
You're born only as good
as anyone else, but you can grow
to be better than some."
I see you squatting "like a
man"
at roadside, layers of coattail
tucked so neatly in the bend
of your knees, waiting
for the Rolling-Store man
getting him told
the day he called you out of your name
having him to know
that you are nobody's "gal"
least of all his,
but doing that neatly, too,
never stooping to hang your
religion on the fencepost.
I never saw you kneeling down to
pray
or throwing pleading glances
toward the heavens in times of trouble.
But I remember you humming
endless verses of "Nearer My God to Thee"
into a stovetop full of steaming pots
the long-handled spoon stirring
"Precious Lord Take My Hand" into the big black kettle
into the yard where you wrung
the family wash, stirring and prodding
against a stiff wooden paddle.
Did the essence of your God float out
in that misty vapor?
Was it the rhythm of your stirring
and prodding that made your voice
more a command than a plea?
In the face of life,
did you find the eye of God?
Your hands dipping
into the endless coins for show-fare
that you always kept tucked into the fold
of your cleavage:
between "the only two suckers you could trust."
Your hands slicing
apple wedges with the patience of Job
and the precision of Christ dividing fish
for ten thousand tiny hands.
Here,
in this modern house
you stand by the well
at your silent best
a new-drawn bucket of water
balanced against your hip.
What picture frame to contain
this head-rag'd view of you --
black phoenix every day rising
before the cock's crow to lay the land
commanding the mountains to stillness
in your glance.
Pushing down the moon
pulling up the sun
deciding the rain
slipping on, like a second skin
the layers of your humble rag
remembering
to move through each day slowly
with the proud, assuming posture
of a Phillis Wheatley poem.
