Let Me Begin Again

Major Jackson - 1968-

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
my vanities: old music in the pines, sifters
of scotch, a day moon like a signature
of night. This time, let me circle
the island of my fears only once then
live like a raging waterfall and grow
a magnificent mustache. Let me not ever be
the birdcage or the serrated blade or
the empty season. Dear Glacier, Dear Sea
of Stars, Dear Leopards disintegrating
at the outer limits of our greed; soon we will
encounter you only in motivational tweets.
Reader, I should have married you sooner.
This time, let me not sleep like the prophet who
believes he’s seen infinity. Let me run
at break-neck speeds toward sceneries
of doubt. I have no more dress rehearsals
to attend. Look closer: I am licking my lips.

Major Jackson is the author of five collections of poetry, including The Absurd Man (W. W. Norton, 2020), Roll Deep (W. W. Norton, 2015), and Leaving Saturn (University of Georgia, 2002), winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award.

Themes

About Major Jackson >

About This Poem

“Writing is my form of action, one that finds me—maybe owed to our global health, political and climate crises— acclimating to an ever-increasing hunger to connect with a reader. The poem highlights the possibilities and joys of self-renewal and the promises of a new tomorrow. As a parent, my favorite mental pictures are of my children, individually off alone, looking curiously into an object. The poem, which is inspired by Philip Levine’s poem of the same title, quite seriously gifts the reader that sustaining image—a black child in wondrous thought.”
—Major Jackson

1. When you have forgotten (to bring into Play that fragrant morsel of rhetoric, Crisp as autumnal air), when you Have forgotten, say, sun-lit corners, brick Full of skyline, rowhomes, smokestacks, Billboards, littered rooftops & wondered What bread wrappers reflect of our hunger, 2. When you have forgotten wide-brimmed hats, Sunday back-seat leather rides & church, The doorlock like a silver cane, the broad backs Swaying or the great moan deep churning, & the shimmer flick of flat sticks, the lurch Forward, skip, hands up Ailey-esque drop, When you have forgotten the meaningful bop, 3. Hustlers and their care-what-may, blasé Ballet and flight, when you have forgotten Scruffy yards, miniature escapes, the way Laundry lines strung up sag like shortened Smiles, when you have forgotten the Fish Man Barking his catch in inches up the street "I've got porgies. I've got trout. Feeesh 4. Man," or his scoop and chain scale, His belief in shad and amberjack; when You have forgotten Ajax and tin pails, Blue crystals frothing on marble front Steps Saturday mornings, or the garden Of old men playing checkers, the curbs White-washed like two lines out to the burbs, 5. Or the hopscotch squares painted new In the street, the pitter-patter of feet Landing on rhymes. "How do you Like the weather, girls? All in together girls, January, February, March, April... " The jump ropes' portentous looming, Their great, aching love blooming. 6. When you have forgotten packs of grape Flavored Now & Laters, the squares Of sugar flattening on the tongue, the elation You felt reaching into the corner-store jar, Grasping a handful of Blow Pops, candy bars With names you didn't recognize but came To learn. All the turf battles. All the war games. 7. When you have forgotten popsicle stick Races along the curb and hydrant fights, Then, retrieve this letter from your stack I've sent by clairvoyant post & read by light. For it brought me as much longing and delight. This week's Father's Day; I've a long ride to Philly. I'll give this to Gramps, then head to Black Lily.

Hiatus

I give up touch. My hand holds stems
         of air, while I remember
         the long hair I wore
         as a not-girl child.

I give up touch to feel
safe in a body. How could I be
the girl they saw the man

I am? Somewhere beyond language

we are touching
only the long hair

of the cool stream
meeting the lake

and I remember

sky when I look down
into its surface, my face
only veil, and below, rocks fish

my shadow. My pulse. Sun and moon
set and rise. Everywhere branches
tangle. Mist from the lake

catches in my beard. Once a butterfly
rested there. The moment I said I’m not

a flower, she lifted away
and I was all bloom.

What is our essence and who
drinks its nectar? A small god

surely lives in my throat
a kind of temple. I have fed him flesh

from the forest floor
and he cradles my eyes

         and he grows me up
         into the green
         of trees. I know

he’s gold though he’s only ever been
visible in dreams. He appears

as my mother, childhood
pets, a first love, a ghost

         story whispered over flashlight
         in a backyard tent, neighbors
         whose names I’ve lost.

Here is where I try to hear him.

Here is where I study how to love him

         bring him elderberry, oxeye
         daisy, row of purple
         foxglove, leopard
         slug, mock orange, morning
         glory, mountain lettuce.

It rains here often. I learn to be water
in a garden. A handsome solitude is not the same

as loneliness. It’s here I call my little gold god

beloved, friend.

Ely Shipley

2020

Poems

Let Me Begin Again

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Picket Monsters (audio only)

Letter to Brooks [Spring Garden]

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Hiatus

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