Originally appeared in Union by Don Share, Eyewear Publishing, 2013.
With these songs, sole comfort
— Sterling A. Brown
The bridge is there
for crossing or not
On the other side
lies the fabled West
I come with a guitar
slung over my shoulder
The song I sing
comes from the heart of wood
The notes I play
are lost, lost, and lost
*
On Union Avenue
a long
siren yawns
Lights change slow and grand
from here to the river
The river slouches on
from here to the Delta
Perhaps there is no
siren or man here
Just river
*
Tonight I saw
the moon enter the river
It slid past the bluff
through the sunken dogwood
left a sheen
on the levee
while the black-hearted river
froze into whitecaps
and the Mississippi turned
all into ice:
Mississippi ice
*
No birds luffed
upward here
The Arkansaw wind
is dry and starved
It rasps the heft
off the hogs’ bones
It brings yellow fever
The Arkansaw wind
is a skilled hand
*
The river is where
time is illegible
The river rushes past
without rushing
past Memphis
where a drowned flag rises
Where America folds in
on itself and against itself
Where the United States ends
and begins
The Mississippi is
a long American wound
*
When geese fly out
to Mud Island why do they stop?
Rock by rock
the riverway leads noplace
leads noplace
but the brownskin river
the river the birds recognize
A body of water
Mirror of dry souls
Who knows Memphis?
Memphis was born
from abolished ruins
Memphis forgot
that Memphis is guilt
Step by step
its folks wade down
its groaning steps
till they damn near drown
in robes of thick mud
Dismantled city
Throne of noplace
*
Memphis is
two syllables
I say each one
by the statue over the bones
of General Forrest
near the medical school
where black doctors train
who go back
to parts of town
where anger never cedes
from old
cracked lips
lisping
“Memphis”
*
A tall reedy man
fishes by the bridge
I find him there
singing
Under the bridge
farther along
I hear more
than his blues
I hear something
scratching
A swarm of rats
Our rats
Confederates
*
The terms
of river warfare
are obscure
Tom Lee Park
when blanked out
with snow
(it does snow)
shows no sign
of catastrophe
of blues
of yellow fever
of the humid months
of blood and dust
or war lost
or the South’s ghost
disgraced
but the monuments
engraved and broken
leave their marks
and contain understanding
forever:
The South has gone down
and it will not come up
*
Ma Rainey
is gone
who would show
you through here
This stone, that stone
like fallen Bibles
If there were
a book of Memphis
it would be a book
of the dead
It would have no words
only blues
blues like a Gulf
storm whipping up
the Mississippi
shaking the pernicious
magnolia
slapping the dogwood
leaves till they weep
strumming the plumed
factory smoke
then blowing a last
gasp
of cotton
down Front Street
by the Cotton
Exchange
And hearing
all these blues
the afternoon
would grow dark
then the afternoon
would grow light
then the sun would
set as if
nothing ever happened
no note added
or taken away
And you would hear
that this water-eyed blues
is not a bitter blues
I try to hum
by Ma Rainey’s grave
a few broken bars
*
The rain
throws down lead
bullets of rain
over a beaten city
with no horizon
Beneath the river we see
is the river we do not see
Drowned water
Cruel rain
Cruel river:
Better be movin’
Better be travelin’ on
Mississippi get you
If you stay
In the hearing
of our ancestors:
You better move soe
Better not get rooted
Muddy water fool you
If you stay
The river so close
The past so close
*
Now the river swells
its wet lungs
and threatens
to rise again
In truth all
its currents flow
like knuckled roots
into one lonesome earth
Photo by Thomas Hawk
