To Lament, But Not Only

Why have our poets died so sad?

For James and Sylvia, for Sonia and Anne,

I mourn your Ohio, your Daddy, your dope,

Your lover’s wife, your ropes, your life;

Discontent to mourn, I’ll write:

When the sun’s up – no, too commonly claimed?

Then when the moon is rising,

Lamping the way of slaves to the north,

To freedom, if sometimes drudgerous, still

A freedom from chains and as real to the wrists,

When it rises, I say,

I’ll gnash my teeth at your demons and raise

Two fists, as I wish

To raise God HimSelf

Against violence that ever

Is done on the mind, poor minds that bleed

out the mouth.

The south,

That old slave runner, that father of lies,

Will not always rise,

But God once did. May this

Be the fist of my writing

And the moon on your wrists.