Music &Poetry Entropy | 26 Oct 2008
Book of Hours
Wish to introduce & share work of Poet Kevin Young, which is also being associated with Jazz Blues. The poet Lucille Clifton has said, about his work.. “This poet’s gift of storytelling and understanding of the music inherent in the oral tradition of language re-creates for us an inner history which is compelling and authentic and American.”
Excerpt from Book of Hours..
The light here leaves you
lonely, fading.
as does the dusk
that takes too long
to arrive.
By morning
the mountain moving
a bit closer to the sun.
This valley belongs
to no one-
except birds who name
themselves by their songs
in the down.
What good
are wishes, if they aren’t
used up ?
The lamp of yours arms
The brightest
blue beneath the clouds-
We guess
at what’s next.
unlike the mountain
who knows it
in the bones, a music
too high
to scale.
∞ ∞ ∞
The sun’s small fury
feeds me.
Wind dying down.
We delay, & dither
then are lifted
into it, brightness
all about—
O setting.
O the music
as we soar
is small, yet sating.
What you want—
Nobody, or nothing
fills our short journeying.
Above even the birds,
winging heavenward,
the world is hard
to leave behind
or land against—
must end.
I mean to make it.
Turning slow beneath
our feet,
finding sun, seen
from above,
this world looks
like us—mostly
salt, dark water.
* * *
It’s death there
is no cure for
life the long
disease.
If we’re lucky.
Otherwise, short
trip beyond.
And below.
Noon,
growing shadow.
I chase the quiet
round the house.
Soon the sound—
wind wills
its way against
the panes. Welcome
the rain.
Welcome
the moon’s squinting
into space.
The trees
bow like priests.
The storm lifts
up the leaves.
Why not sing.