My father has a picture of me
taken around the time Charlie Parker
died. I am sitting up like a prince,
erect, bright, smiling. I have promise
around my head woven in vines
of gold, but this is not in the picture.
I remember radio from then,
checking the paper for my shows.
My father had a habit of bringing
home toys to me, small things on days
he got paid. It was a reward
for being firstborn and being a son.
I was supposed to make the future
a safe place. I had to kill the lion.
I look at my son and my brother.
I look at my father. The four of us
are a circuit where the current is
a stream of hope & fear, floating,
going back, living and not living.
We hold up our hands and dreams
fly out of them, birds of blue electric.
In the guarded arms of my own sentries,
her spell, her tongue against sweet taste
of bird song, fingers a lullaby against my wooden doors,
light beating accomodations of soul rings, music
of our escape.
We chase the air,
a pair of totems for desire,
her head twirling braids in tiny feathers,
soft squeals of her toes mashing
wet grass. I sing our mothers’ one song,
river reverie—
now, here, now
low in the moon’s cry
now, there, now
I sing, I touch you.
In the window, another choir,
the other in her dark rage,
stones smashed into the stars,
blood from the wailing
of lungfish too long dry,
jealousy in purple rage.
My hand knows you,
clap and clatter, bird rush
from the thicket of tears,
sweat song—my hand knows.
I taste you.
About the writer：
Afaa Weaver was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1951. He studied in University of Maryland (1968-70) and Morgan State University (1975), but left with no degree. In 1983, he entered Excelsior College and in 1986, he was awarded a B.A. in Literature in English. In 1985, he attended Brown University, majoring in creative writing, and got his M.A. in 1987. He worked as an assistant professor and lecturer and taught writing, poetry, black literature, and playwriting in many universities; he is now Professor of English in Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts. Besides poetry, he is also a playwright. He has published many collections of poetry: Gathering Voices (1985), Water Song (1985), Some days it’s a slow walk to evening (1989), My Father’s Geography (1992), Stations in a Dream, (1993), Timber and Prayer (1995), The Ten Lights of God (2000), Sandy Point (2000), These Hands I Know (2000), and Multitudes / poems selected and new (2000). He has received several awards, grants and fellowships, including Pennsylvania Arts Council fellowship, Outstanding Young Man of America and PDI Playwrights Award.
Weaver thinks, after decades of experimentation and change, the future for poetry will be the union of cyber space and the old traditional reality of poetry. To popularize poetry, Weaver has advocated poetry readings. Besides U.S.A., he has been invited to read poetry in London, Paris, and many other cities. However, he is concerned that we have a quantitative increase rather than a qualitative one. That is sort of parallel with America’s cult of the celebrity, which he thinks is very dangerous.
