by Chris Abani
I say his name over and over — Larry, blessing be upon you.
And eventually he came back from death in my dreams,
smoking a cigarette so raw he picked tobacco from his tongue
and flicked the speck into the light. Through that cloud
with a bushy mustache more Croce, he said,
You will not understand it all. Not now, maybe never.
But I was in a hurry and scribbled those lines for David.
But he was right. Even now as I count the signs
walking by a river in Princeton, it remains occluded:
Two blue jays — the Christ — before and after.
Three snakes — the wisdom of body, heart, and the mind.
Five white-tailed deer — breaking for the trees,
the five mystical wounds that will not heal.
I have always envied the stigmata.
But it is the ordinary things, isn’t it?
The daily sigh of the world that defeated Eliot —
And even anger can die in this way.
Until there is nothing but ash on a dinner plate
next to dried gravy and a cold, gray piece of meat.
Like the photos of my dead father.
Skin blacker than worked leather, and wrinkled.
As though all the anger in him had burned out on his skin.
And small as a bony wet cat and I think, How could it all
become so pedestrian, as I step out into traffic.
The bus misses me, but I am tenacious,
there is another at 6:15.
There is a God, I chant, there is a God.
But it is just the apple pie à la mode talking.
I am getting wet, Larry, I am getting wet.
Hey, Rilke, I have finally figured out who your terrible angel is.
And his face is the morning and his laugh is the night.
But I shan’t tell on you.
What kind of poet rats out another?
In the Nigeria of my youth, women bleached their skin, leaching
all that was black except what was too stubborn to go,
whorling elbows and knuckles and knees,
and memories blotching faces —
Yellowish-blackish-greenish-blue —
Skin as bruise.
Holy be thy name, O Lady of the mercury soap,
O Lord of the encroaching light.
Renewal
1
Water and sand and the world.
This was my childhood.
And rice steaming under tomato stew heavy with chicken and thyme.
And ice cream melted and coarse to the taste.
And the endless cough of savanna.
And chopper bicycles.
I am speaking of Afikpo.
The slant of the telling and it means according to each man.
The gang or the police.
The bumper car or helicopter.
The killing or the clubbing.
Particular, like the scent of summer light.
I am speaking of Los Angeles.
Holy be the Crips.
Holy be the Bloods.
Holy be the 18th Street.
Holy be the LAPD.
The historical narrative hinges on the sound
of a car cutting the gravel as it turns.
The war is still raging.
The poor keep dying.
Which is to say, young Americans.
Which is to say, young Palestinians.
Which is to say, young Israelis.
Which is to say, young Africans.
It’s not that the rich don’t care,
but how can the Virgin be set free of the icon?
Marvin sang and sang, but the spell didn’t work.
It’s still happening, brother.
This is how we suppress the trauma.
The Turks are lying about the Armenian ghosts.
I want to rampage through the world and rectify:
Blood for blood.
Death for death.
What can happen to all this hate?
Where do I bury it?
To exit is the first stage of enlightenment.
2
There are four mothers for the world.
For the joy of this knowledge.
The mother is lost.
Holy the mother.
Holy, holy, holy.
What have we built? As Igbos, what have we built?
Perhaps the greatest bridge to the waking world across dreams,
between what can be imagined and said.
But what use is this if we cannot buy rice?
What good is it if we squander it?
I will follow the Nile one day.
And the Niger, too. Perhaps even the Cross.
Glory be to free-flowing water.
Soon it will be gone and sand
makes a less adequate metaphor,
shifting and erasing the tracks in it.
If I were really a philosopher, I would travel.
My continent awaits me.
Africa is a dream for us all.
3
Have you ever woken to find it was you
drinking coffee and looking out all along?
We killed our grandfathers.
Then we killed our fathers.
Now we are killing ourselves.
Next will be the sons.
This is our legacy.
For fear of being loved we will kill the world.
Sometimes a bird slicing sky has no other meaning.
Sometimes water slakes out thirst.
Even this can be enough.
4
My mother left a question mark, an unresolved ellipsis,
an echo maybe of a robin fluttering between gray
gravestones rising like abrupt cliffs in the sea of green.
I am her desire spreading into night like a rude whisper.
Now there is little to mark my days
save the slow steady reliability of water,
and a pump that measures, in perfect cups,
the shallow depths of each falling away
into an endless bucket, like a door opening to shadow,
and the way her heart held it open for me.
5
How foolish of me to keep knocking
on the door to a heart whose face remains closed to me.
All these words, Father, all these words written
searching for you when it was never you, was it?
It was always me.
If I could build you a funeral pyre
I would lay down my hairbrush,
my G.I. Joe,
my books,
my pencils,
my drawings,
my books,
my dreams,
my books,
all.
Then fire.
I set you free that night, Father.
When you came back in that yellow Volkswagen,
in that dream.
I made a boat of honor for you.
Woven of poems and words and not-words.
I set it on the ocean.
Fr. Obuna said to me,
A gift is freely given and a gift
is freely returned.
It has taken me thirty years
to understand this.
Yemaja has your heart now.
May she be merciful.
May she love you.
The wound bleeds no more.
Which is to say,
what I have desired is like salt
left out all night and gone.
Dew be soft.
Dew be salty.
6
Bean.
I feel so alive in you.
Damn the dead.
Damn the dying.
This is a hard light to weave words in.
If men could truly write love letters,
what would we say?
Jesus forgive this stake.
> I must drive it home.
Something must die, for us to live.
We still haven’t figured out the way.
From the train window,
a lone tree grows out of a pylon.
7
I want to say this:
What is left after the poet’s gaze rips into us?
Cadaver?
Body?
Light?
If butterflies could know this melancholy.
This is a terrible, tragic alchemy.
But I will work the metal of my being
until it reflects only what is there.
And can I stand before this pure id?
Before this darkness that can burn the cornea?
Which is to say that there is only light.
Which is to say that there are only angels.
Which is to say that this is not death.
Holy is the hope.
Holy is the desire.
Holy is the awe.
Holy, holy, holy.
Amen.
8
This is not a lamentation, damn it.
This is a love song.
This is a love song.
Like reggae — it all falls on the offbeat.
If there is a way, it is here.
They say you cannot say this in a poem.
That you cannot say love and mean anything.
That you cannot say soul and approach heaven.
But the sun is no fool, I tell you.
It will rise for nothing less.
About the Author
Chris Abani’s prose includes Song for Night (Akashic, 2007), TheVirgin of Flames (Penguin, 2007), Becoming Abigail (Akashic, 2006), GraceLand (FSG, 2004), and Masters of the Board (Delta, 1985). His poetry collections are Hands Washing Water (Copper Canyon, 2006), Dog Woman (Red Hen, 2004), Daphne’s Lot (Red Hen, 2003), and Kalakuta Republic (Saqi, 2000). He is a professor at the University of California, Riverside, and the recipient of the PEN USA Freedom to Write Award, the Prince Claus Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a California Book Award, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a PEN/Beyond Margins Award, the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Books by Chris Abani
FICTION
Song for Night
The Virgin of Flames
Becoming Abigail
GraceLand
Masters of the Board
POETRY
Hands Washing Water
Dog Woman
Daphne’s Lot
Kalakuta Republic
Links
Chris Abani: On Humanity
Acknowledgments
Some of these poems have appeared in Blackbird, Bombay Gin, Court Green, diode, Farafina, Narrative, Redivider, The Southern Review, and Tarpaulin Sky.
Thanks to Sarah Valentine, Peter Orner, Cristina García, Matthew Shenoda, A. Van Jordan, Patty Paine, Junot Díaz, Kwame Dawes, and Michael Wiegers.
Copyright 2010 by Christopher Abani
All rights reserved
Cover art: Victor Ekpuk, detail from Good Morning Sunrise, 2004. Acrylic on canvas, 48 × 48 inches.
ISBN: 978-1-55659-316-1
eISBN: 978-1-61932-071-0
Support Copper Canyon Press:
If you have enjoyed this title, please consider supporting Copper Canyon Press and our dedication to bringing the work of emerging, established, and world-renowned poets to an expanding audience through e-books:
www.coppercanyonpress.org/pages/donation.asp
Contact Copper Canyon Press:
To contact us with feedback about this title send an
e-mail to:
[email protected]
The Chinese character for poetry is made up of two parts: “word” and “temple.” It also serves as pressmark for Copper Canyon Press.
Since 1972, Copper Canyon Press has fostered the work of emerging, established, and world-renowned poets for an expanding audience. The Press thrives with the generous patronage of readers, writers, booksellers, librarians, teachers, students, and funders – everyone who shares the belief that poetry is vital to language and living.
Copper Canyon Press gratefully acknowledges major support from:
The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation
Amazon.com
Anonymous
Arcadia Fund
John Branch
Diana and Jay Broze
Beroz Ferrell & The Point, LLC
Mimi Gardner Gates
Golden Lasso, LLC
Gull Industries, Inc.
on behalf of William and Ruth True
Carolyn and Robert Hedin
Lannan Foundation
Rhoady and Jeanne Marie Lee
Maureen Lee and Mark Busto
The Maurer Family Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
New Mexico Community Foundation
H. Stewart Parker
Penny and Jerry Peabody
Joseph C. Roberts
Cynthia Lovelace Sears and Frank Buxton
The Seattle Foundation
Washington State Arts Commission
Charles and Barbara Wright
The dedicated interns and faithful volunteers of
Copper Canyon Press
To learn more about underwriting Copper Canyon Press titles, please call 360-385-4925 ext. 103
