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Dry rapping
prayer
circles the young
and clings with the
persistence of dust.
Hands raise to pound
to legs and ribs,
lean and meek.
More hollow manmade
drums feed the beat.
In wait of rain and
vessels, steps become
a careful map of feet.
These drums from Ghana
are hearts of Haiti, now
sound in midwest America.
These drums are family;
empty chested father,
mediating mother and
high quick beaten child.
The toes of moving
children draw faces
where they stand
then swing into
grasshopper springs
who try to reach
and pull down rain
and call its name with
careening leaf speech.
This dance is the
turbulence of children
whose legs' and arms'
length is the same,
whose arms move to remove
themselves through whittled
sharp flight, the movement
of flame.
Copyright
© 1999 K.L. Sullivan Isacson
All Rights Reserved |
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