for Paul Otremba
Six in all, to be exact. I know it was a Tuesday
or Wednesday because the museum closes early
on those days. I almost wrote something
about the light being late—; the “late light”
is what I almost said, and you know how we
poets go on and on about the light and
the wind and the dark, but that day the dark was still
far away swimming in the Pacific, and we had
45 minutes to find Goya’s “Still Life with Bream”
before the doors closed. I’ve now forgotten
three times the word Golden in the title of that painting
—and I wish I could ask what you think
that means. I see that color most often
these days when the cold, wet light of morning
soaks my son’s curls and his already light
brown hair takes on the flash of fish fins
in moonlight. I read somewhere
that Goya never titled this painting,
or the other eleven still lifes, so it’s just
as well because I like the Spanish title better.
“Doradas” is simple, doesn’t point
out the obvious. Lately, I’ve been saying
dorado so often in the song I sing
to my son, “O sol, sol, dorado sol
no te escondes...” I felt lost
that day in the museum, but you knew
where we were going having been there
so many times. The canvas was so small
at 17 x 24 inches. I stood before it
lost in its beach of green sand and
that silver surf cut with pink.
I stared while you circled the room
like a curious cat. I took a step back,
and then with your hands in your pockets
you said, No matter where we stand,
there’s always one fish staring at us.
As a new father, I am now that pyramid
of fish; my body is all eyes and eyes.
Some of them watch for you in the west
where the lion sun yawns and shakes off
its sleep before it purrs, and hungry,
dives deep in the deep of the deep.
Copyright © 2020 by Tomás Q. Morín. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 18, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I can remember when I was a little, young girl, how my old mammy would sit out of doors in the evenings and look up at the stars and groan, and I would say, ‘Mammy, what makes you groan so?’ And she would say, ‘I am groaning to think of my poor children; they do not know where I be and I don’t know where they be. I look up at the stars and they look up at the stars!’”
—Sojourner Truth.
I think I see her sitting bowed and black,
Stricken and seared with slavery’s mortal scars,
Reft of her children, lonely, anguished, yet
Still looking at the stars.
Symbolic mother, we thy myriad sons,
Pounding our stubborn hearts on Freedom’s bars,
Clutching our birthright, fight with faces set,
Still visioning the stars!
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 24, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
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.
From Wounded in the House of a Friend. Copyright © 1995 by Sonia Sanchez. Used with the permission of Beacon Press.