15 STICKS OF DYNAMITE

 

Sunday, Sept 15, 1963, 10:22 am

16^th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama

 

 

She’s hoping that cute boy she likes

gonna be here today, sitting in a front pew.

Maybe she’ll have the nerve to say hi.

 

Cynthia Wesley, age 14

 

Say her name.

 

 

Junie, my sister, always rereading her Bible!

Wish I didn’t have to sing today. Such

a nice day out. Uh-oh, there go lil’ Denise

with her sash come all undone. Better go

help her out.

 

Addie Mae Collins, age 14

 

Say her name.

 

 

She loves singing in choir with all the older girls.

Lucky for her Addie Mae treats her like  

a little sister. Helped her tie that pesky sash,

always coming loose.

 

(Carole) Denise McNair, age 11

Say her name.

 

 

Mama, can I go on over

 to some of them meetings here

at church, all about rights? No,

Mamas says. Best keep quiet.

 Stay home. Don’t make waves.

Don’t like that Dr. King much. But Mama,

he’s my hero!

 

Carole Robertson, age 14

 

 

Say her name. 

Never stop saying their names.

 

 

***

GEESE BEFORE DARK

 

 

All morning in cold December sun after days of rain,

over and over the wild geese swarm, a cacophony

of  joy here in New York’s center, with its hand-print

of lakes, where wide wings take them into light

that burnishes breasts, between two sanctuaries.

Their wave of return always happens around four,

just before the curtain of black falls, fast and completely—

 

just the way night happened that time you traveled alone

along California’s Central Coast in search of monarchs

and hummingbirds. You’d finished some pie at Appleseed’s,

chatting up the young server, telling her to follow her heart

to art school, no matter what, and when you leave  

an unanticipated tsunami of darkness sweeps up and beaches you

on an unfamiliar road with only the puny beam of your

headlights to cut through that otherness, you wonder

which way to turn, which thoroughfare to follow.

 

Driving on blindly, fighting panic, desperate for a beacon,

a sign, a refuge, all of a sudden—the way each almost-winter

dusk those geese return—you spy that blessed rectangle

of metal perched on a stake: Route 101 S.

With a gleeful bursting heart you take that road

all the way back from San Luis Obispo to Pismo Beach,

to the room in the Best Western with the balcony

whose sliding glass door opens to the sea below—

to whose rhythmic music you slide deep,

into the flutter of wings that are your dreams.

 

 

***

FLINT

 

1

Water Bearers

 

like women in Senegal

together toward the fire house

these mothers and their scampering kids

make their way  much laughter 

ribald jokes  what else

would you have them do?

 

2

Faucet

 

again and again

the handle may be creaked on

opening and opening

nothing changes  orange

liquid spills forth

brown hands scoop it up

a face cools  then burns

 

3

Oasis

 

thirst is our first desire

superseding all others

how far would you crawl

toward a quenching?

what if the clump of towering

palms just ahead

only continues to shimmer

as it moves on and on

beyond you?

 

 

4

Choice

 

do you let your baby gather

dirt into her pores rather

than sluice it away with

what might keep her later

from books or school

or even speech?

 

5

Banquet

 

you are seated at a long table

crystal goblets at each place

way down the groaning board

where some who do not recognize

you are placed, the goblets glisten

by candlelight poured full of stars

back down by you and your kind

the glasses hold no light

when the toast is called for

yours are too heavy to lift