Maybe it was hog-killing time when he arrived in Lynchburg, Virginia, several lifetimes behind him,
the old smell of the monkey house at the New York Zoological Gardens receding, a broken memory left.
Not sure of the paths & turns taken, woozy in a swarm of hues, he stood in Anne Spencer’s garden surrounding the clapboard house, but when she spoke he came back to himself. The poet had juba
in her voice, & never called him Artiba, Bengal, Autobank, or Otto Bingo. Her beds of tiger
lilies, sweet peas, & snapdragons disarmed him. Her fine drawl summoned rivers, trees, & boats,
in a distant land, & he could hear a drum underneath these voices near the forest.
the old smell of the monkey house at the New York Zoological Gardens receding, a broken memory left.
Not sure of the paths & turns taken, woozy in a swarm of hues, he stood in Anne Spencer’s garden surrounding the clapboard house, but when she spoke he came back to himself. The poet had juba
in her voice, & never called him Artiba, Bengal, Autobank, or Otto Bingo. Her beds of tiger
lilies, sweet peas, & snapdragons disarmed him. Her fine drawl summoned rivers, trees, & boats,
in a distant land, & he could hear a drum underneath these voices near the forest.