This is not a small voice
you hear               this is a large
voice coming out of these cities.
This is the voice of LaTanya.
Kadesha. Shaniqua. This
is the voice of Antoine.
Darryl. Shaquille.
Running over waters
navigating the hallways
of our schools spilling out
on the corners of our cities and
no epitaphs spill out of their river mouths.

This is not a small love
you hear               this is a large
love, a passion for kissing learning
on its face.
This is a love that crowns the feet with hands
that nourishes, conceives, feels the water sails
mends the children,
folds them inside our history where they
toast more than the flesh
where they suck the bones of the alphabet
and spit out closed vowels.
This is a love colored with iron and lace.
This is a love initialed Black Genius.

This is not a small voice
you hear.

The moon still sends its mellow light
Through the purple blackness of the night; 
The morning star is palely bright
                    Before the dawn. 

The sun still shines just as before; 
The rose still grows beside my door, 
                    But you have gone. 

The sky is blue and the robin sings; 
The butterflies dance on rainbow wings
                   Though I am sad. 

In all the earth no joy can be; 
Happiness comes no more to me, 
                   For you are dead. 

I have all of these
lily plants but not you,
nor peace.

How they ease
my breathing yet
trouble my mind,
symbols
of your soaring
too high to see
or reach,
beauty clanging
like bells
out of tune, time’s
up.         Leaves

so shiny & perfect
they look fake,
but a few brown ones
barely clinging &
curled in on themselves—
less supple, less everything
like me, let me know
they are real.

They are real. Too
real. Lord knows
you were the most real
one can ever be & now
you are really gone!

Your need is over,
but your giving goes on
& on.     Heaven is shedding
desire’s heavy robes, pure
devotion to love’s
bare essence.    You, flowered
& shiny in what’s left
of my heart, teaching me
to rally. No matter
how it may appear,
I’m not rootless.

Today & tomorrow
& the day after that,
you remain evergreen
& ours
somewhere not here,
as my tears land
in potted soil exiled
from its mother, Earth,
like me.

^{for our elders}

You arrive as found blade for this tale 
I will tell you no gospel you know, 
No crow’s throat will belt guesses 

This year sound out the life I spend 
In the company of those who are all 
On their way to another world

And I am still on your way here 
A mouth as a cold wind
And I rise from me as I rise from me 

And I lift us bad as the night air 
Bad as it in hurricane season  
And sudden as we’re filled with the black wind

I feel nothing like dread
Hold still the planetary language
Who’ll tell you, really, what we’ve done

To speak of walking, of having walked 
Where flocks, animals say, slow lorises, rest 
Something of their tired and bud

To rot our chests of their bright moons
Moons disgorged from a twisting …
No, forget the moon. This time, we know 

The moon does not heed our endless calling 
Or duties for lubricating our worry 
The endless looking up, like a moment ago

When I could mean just anything else
Break into a crowd, a too narrow room,
The Atlantic’s long rage, mean anything at all

Where must I consider to live
With whatever dried longing 
We rise up to be in the morning           rain