Littlefoot XXIX. The Little Birds Are Honing Their Beaks on the Chopping Block Stump
By CHARLES WRIGHT
The little birds are honing their beaks on the chopping block stump.
The clouds have gathered for their convention
from deep out in the dark Pacific.
They clear their throats and speak out.
Everything stills and listens,
even the little birds
With their sharp beaks and sharp claws,
clinging inside the tamaracks
Until the storm passes and the cloud bodies adjourn.
That’s when the big birds come,
with their sweeping wings and dangling legs.
Their eyes ajar, and the lightning sparks from their keening claws.
The poppies along the near hill glisten like small fires,
Pink and orange and damp red.
Behind the glass window, we hear the swoosh of the giant wings,
And listen hard for the next pass,
but they don’t come back.
It’s not such a poverty, we think,
to live in a metaphysical world.
Thus we become poor, and spurn the riches of the earth.
Such nonsense.
The crow flies with his beak open,
emitting a raucous cry.
The yearling horses stand in the field,
up to their knees in the new grass.
This is the first world we live in, there is no second.
* * *
The mind’s the affliction,
asleep for a hundred years,
Nothing to wake it but memory,
The deep blank of memory,
river and hills, the morning sun,
Simple things,
the body moving, not much, but moving.
* * *
Orpheus walked, the poets say, down to the black river.
Nobody recognized him,
Of course, and the boat came,
the gondola with its singular oarsman,
And the crowd got in, a thousand souls,
So light that the boat drew no water, not even a half-inch.
On the other side, the one paved road, and they took it.
Afterwards, echoes of the great song webbed their ears,
They took the same road back to the waiting gondola,
The two of them,
the first to have ever returned to the soot-free shore.
The oarsman’s stroke never faltered, and he hummed the song
He had caught the faint edges of
from the distant, marble halls.
It won’t work, he thought to himself, it won’t work. And it didn’t.
* * *
Clouds, like the hills of heaven,
Are nowhere in evidence tonight.
Sundown, an empty sky.
Except for the quarter moon, like a sail with no ship,
And no home port to come to.
Its world is without end.
* * *
The smallest cloud I’ve ever seen
floats like a white midge
Over the western ridge line,
Then vanishes in the wind and the dying sunlight.
How unremarkable,
though no moon comes to shine on its going out.
And nothing arrives to take its place.
Forlorn evening, that makes me want to sit here forever, and then some.
I’ll likely meet it again, a thousand years from now,
When it rises up through my bedroom,
buzzing against the windowpane.
* * *
We are the generations of the soil,
it is our cloak and put-on.
Somnambulists of sore intent,
Barefoot or full-shod, it is our destination.
Our Compostela.
We rub its rock for luck, and slip inside to get warm,
As though, like our grandfathers before us,
we lie down in our own hearts.
* * *
The dogs are barking under the newly planted trees.
When we’re transplanted, they’ll bark again,
but not for us.
By CHARLES WRIGHT
The little birds are honing their beaks on the chopping block stump.
The clouds have gathered for their convention
from deep out in the dark Pacific.
They clear their throats and speak out.
Everything stills and listens,
even the little birds
With their sharp beaks and sharp claws,
clinging inside the tamaracks
Until the storm passes and the cloud bodies adjourn.
That’s when the big birds come,
with their sweeping wings and dangling legs.
Their eyes ajar, and the lightning sparks from their keening claws.
The poppies along the near hill glisten like small fires,
Pink and orange and damp red.
Behind the glass window, we hear the swoosh of the giant wings,
And listen hard for the next pass,
but they don’t come back.
It’s not such a poverty, we think,
to live in a metaphysical world.
Thus we become poor, and spurn the riches of the earth.
Such nonsense.
The crow flies with his beak open,
emitting a raucous cry.
The yearling horses stand in the field,
up to their knees in the new grass.
This is the first world we live in, there is no second.
* * *
The mind’s the affliction,
asleep for a hundred years,
Nothing to wake it but memory,
The deep blank of memory,
river and hills, the morning sun,
Simple things,
the body moving, not much, but moving.
* * *
Orpheus walked, the poets say, down to the black river.
Nobody recognized him,
Of course, and the boat came,
the gondola with its singular oarsman,
And the crowd got in, a thousand souls,
So light that the boat drew no water, not even a half-inch.
On the other side, the one paved road, and they took it.
Afterwards, echoes of the great song webbed their ears,
They took the same road back to the waiting gondola,
The two of them,
the first to have ever returned to the soot-free shore.
The oarsman’s stroke never faltered, and he hummed the song
He had caught the faint edges of
from the distant, marble halls.
It won’t work, he thought to himself, it won’t work. And it didn’t.
* * *
Clouds, like the hills of heaven,
Are nowhere in evidence tonight.
Sundown, an empty sky.
Except for the quarter moon, like a sail with no ship,
And no home port to come to.
Its world is without end.
* * *
The smallest cloud I’ve ever seen
floats like a white midge
Over the western ridge line,
Then vanishes in the wind and the dying sunlight.
How unremarkable,
though no moon comes to shine on its going out.
And nothing arrives to take its place.
Forlorn evening, that makes me want to sit here forever, and then some.
I’ll likely meet it again, a thousand years from now,
When it rises up through my bedroom,
buzzing against the windowpane.
* * *
We are the generations of the soil,
it is our cloak and put-on.
Somnambulists of sore intent,
Barefoot or full-shod, it is our destination.
Our Compostela.
We rub its rock for luck, and slip inside to get warm,
As though, like our grandfathers before us,
we lie down in our own hearts.
* * *
The dogs are barking under the newly planted trees.
When we’re transplanted, they’ll bark again,
but not for us.
Alright then! I'm going to be out for the next couple of weeks backpacking, so I won't be posting for a while. See you in February!
Update: In the meantime, a friend of mine is going to be taking over the channel! He specializes in more classical stuff than what I usually post, but good stuff nonetheless!
Update: In the meantime, a friend of mine is going to be taking over the channel! He specializes in more classical stuff than what I usually post, but good stuff nonetheless!
Full Service
By KENDRA ALLEN
It is black Friday. I am wearing a black hoodie with the words RACIALLY PROFILED printed in white across my chest. I am selected, randomly, at check in. Hands in my hair,
down my back, in my hometown airport.
Never touching my skin, only the fabric that is covering it. I am slightly embarrassed by all the eyes on me, the culprit, I can hear the What Did She Do’s? clearly.
This is not coincidence. I wore this hoodie to the airport on purpose, I always do. My hands are swabbed with something that resembles a big band-aid and processed through a machine making static-like noise. They are finally tired of my black ass antics. The guard asks am I ok with this as she takes off her rubber gloves, as she finishes the job. I stare at the machine that holds my fingerprints inside. This is something I expected to happen at one point or another, yet right now I am mad that it is happening. She asks again, am I ok with this. She knows, but she doesn’t know, that I have become accustomed to being looked at as if my face is made of the darkest of chocolates, but I am still dirty. She doesn’t want to touch me. She never lays an ungloved finger on me. This is something I pick up on and now I am scared of accidentally rubbing my flesh against her tension. I know I will immediately say sorry if I do. I do not want a white girl to feel uncomfortable by my presence. I go out of my way to show my teeth. I have to prove that I am harmless and clean. My cocoa butter lotion will not rub off on you and make your skin look like mine, I promise, believe me.
As she throws away her rubber gloves, I don’t ask her why she chose me because I know she cannot tell me the truth.
When I get to my terminal, I am met with blue and green eyes that scurry to the floor in fear that I might take a seat next to them—I hope that it is because I am talking on the phone too loudly; it’s either that or the purple braids that are literally down my ass.
I can feel myself changing, growing blacker in all the stereotypical ways that bring about love and loathe. I can feel myself changing. These braids are so long and separate from who I am. This is making me angry, presenting myself to this terminal only to be rejected. I quiet my speaking voice on the phone. I move my purple hair out of the way. I try to fix my face into a nice one. This anger is blocking my blessings. It never shifts. It is always there, showing niggas what they can and cannot do.
The boarding process begins, they call Zone 2 and I make my way into the line. I am being watched, again, by white toddlers who look as if I am a rare stone they have never seen up close and personal. I am watched, again, by their mothers who move them out of my way to stop them from engaging with my walk of shame. I am being watched, again, what I do, what I say, how I move in the vicinity of the majority, it is hard for me to pass, I am not a passive girl. Although they get a pass, for being white, for having man-made authority. They get smiles and welcoming body language. On the other hand, I cannot even publicly claim that I matter without a: but not more than me echoing in my autobiography.
I am boarding a plane on black Friday and I just got off of my period yesterday. I am feeling empty. There is no more blood left in me to shed. I sit down in my seat and the flight attendant is making jokes about picking your favorite child in case the plane happens to go down. I am sitting on a plane, black— in black pants— in a black hoodie—on black Friday. If this plane goes down, it will land no lower than where I already am on the all lives matter totem pole.
At takeoff I close my eyes and say a silent prayer that if this is my last day on earth, Lord, please forgive me for my thoughts about white folks.
By KENDRA ALLEN
It is black Friday. I am wearing a black hoodie with the words RACIALLY PROFILED printed in white across my chest. I am selected, randomly, at check in. Hands in my hair,
down my back, in my hometown airport.
Never touching my skin, only the fabric that is covering it. I am slightly embarrassed by all the eyes on me, the culprit, I can hear the What Did She Do’s? clearly.
This is not coincidence. I wore this hoodie to the airport on purpose, I always do. My hands are swabbed with something that resembles a big band-aid and processed through a machine making static-like noise. They are finally tired of my black ass antics. The guard asks am I ok with this as she takes off her rubber gloves, as she finishes the job. I stare at the machine that holds my fingerprints inside. This is something I expected to happen at one point or another, yet right now I am mad that it is happening. She asks again, am I ok with this. She knows, but she doesn’t know, that I have become accustomed to being looked at as if my face is made of the darkest of chocolates, but I am still dirty. She doesn’t want to touch me. She never lays an ungloved finger on me. This is something I pick up on and now I am scared of accidentally rubbing my flesh against her tension. I know I will immediately say sorry if I do. I do not want a white girl to feel uncomfortable by my presence. I go out of my way to show my teeth. I have to prove that I am harmless and clean. My cocoa butter lotion will not rub off on you and make your skin look like mine, I promise, believe me.
As she throws away her rubber gloves, I don’t ask her why she chose me because I know she cannot tell me the truth.
When I get to my terminal, I am met with blue and green eyes that scurry to the floor in fear that I might take a seat next to them—I hope that it is because I am talking on the phone too loudly; it’s either that or the purple braids that are literally down my ass.
I can feel myself changing, growing blacker in all the stereotypical ways that bring about love and loathe. I can feel myself changing. These braids are so long and separate from who I am. This is making me angry, presenting myself to this terminal only to be rejected. I quiet my speaking voice on the phone. I move my purple hair out of the way. I try to fix my face into a nice one. This anger is blocking my blessings. It never shifts. It is always there, showing niggas what they can and cannot do.
The boarding process begins, they call Zone 2 and I make my way into the line. I am being watched, again, by white toddlers who look as if I am a rare stone they have never seen up close and personal. I am watched, again, by their mothers who move them out of my way to stop them from engaging with my walk of shame. I am being watched, again, what I do, what I say, how I move in the vicinity of the majority, it is hard for me to pass, I am not a passive girl. Although they get a pass, for being white, for having man-made authority. They get smiles and welcoming body language. On the other hand, I cannot even publicly claim that I matter without a: but not more than me echoing in my autobiography.
I am boarding a plane on black Friday and I just got off of my period yesterday. I am feeling empty. There is no more blood left in me to shed. I sit down in my seat and the flight attendant is making jokes about picking your favorite child in case the plane happens to go down. I am sitting on a plane, black— in black pants— in a black hoodie—on black Friday. If this plane goes down, it will land no lower than where I already am on the all lives matter totem pole.
At takeoff I close my eyes and say a silent prayer that if this is my last day on earth, Lord, please forgive me for my thoughts about white folks.