Migration (audio only)
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
As a child I wanted as many letters
in my bloodstream as the planet Mercury
would allow and so traveled the city
on buses late afternoons and read all the billboards
high above the streets and byways,
on sides of factories and churches and never
heard the sermons of the displaced
Let me begin again as a quiet thought
in the shape of a shell slowly examined
by a brown child on a beach at dawn
straining to see their future. Let me begin
this time knowing the drumming in my dreams
is me inheriting the earth, is morning
lighting up the rivers. Let me burn
If you end your crusades for the great race,
then I will end my reenactments of flying,
and if you lean down to smell a painted trillium,
then I will cast a closer eye on those amber waves,
and if you stop killing black children,
then I will turn my drums to the sea and away from