Classic Poem

Down
Down into the fathomless depths
Down into the abyss beneath the stone
Down still farther, to the very bottom
of the infinite
Where black-eyed peas & greens are stored
Where de lawd sits among melon rinds.
A dark blue sound (funky & barefooted)
entered & sang a tear for the People
Of black women (buxom & beautiful)
With nappy heads & cocoa filled breasts
nippled with molasses,
& their legs sensual & long beneath
short bright dresses
& of black men greasy from the sun-soaked
fields sitting in the shade,
their guitars, the willow & the
squatting sun weeping authentic blues

These quantums of pure soul
Who pick cotton under the rant rays of the sun
Who eat hot greasy fish, chitlins, corn pone,
pig feet, fat back & drink wine
on Sat. nights
Who get happy & swing tambourines & sing
them there spirituals
Who are blessed by the power of poverty

Who bathe their feet in streamlets of
simplicity
Who are torn by the insolence & depression
of bigot blonde America,
Are the essence of beauty
The very earth
The good earth
The black earth

In these moments when my man preaches
about a no good nigger woman who did
him wrong
My fingers begin to pop
My feet jump alive
The blue sound clutches me to its bosom
until I become that sound
In these moments when the sun is blue
When the rivers flow with wine
When the neck bone tree is in blossom
I raise my down bent kinky head to charlie
& shout
I'm black. I'm black
& I'm from Look Back