In the hard shadow of the moon 
when the recesses of light have gone  
and the faint red of the hawk’s shoulder has disappeared from the sky 
in the growing pulse of the praying mantis 
when the city has come into its own new light 
it is here where I often remember:

the weaving of ocean vines 
the trails of history, cemented by touch 
the small ridged blossom of the cowry shell 
the indigo dye made radiant by the seller’s basket.

The way the long grass  
emerges at the shore. 
Something of that meeting.

These are memories both distant and near 
traces of them lived and felt  
laughing in the company of the ones who came 
holding the silence of the moment, as we stare  
with wonder, at the bubbling ruptures of a painter’s canvas, 
pull, with care, the clinging skin of a stubborn fruit.

I recall these moments  
not from the grand gesture 
of a thing once known,  
but from a small place 
the place where my child’s hand
is hidden warmly inside my own.

I shall gather myself into myself again,
   I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,
Fusing them into a polished crystal ball
   Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.

I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent,
   Watching the future come and the present go,
And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
   In restless self-importance to and fro.

Lonely log cabin
On the road to Notasulga, 
Sighing and sagging and quaking;
Let me breathe to the heart of your walls
A secret—
To keep it from breaking.
Once in a Harlem cellar,
A brown girl,
Wiggling and strutting
In a stranger’s arms,
Dreaming of you
For a God-given moment—
Forgot to proffer her charms.