Again the Sun Rises

Again the sun rises.
Oh Glory! I had not thought
it would be so beautiful
so clean.

And I had not known
before
how small and dark
I was
how quickly I would burn
how little would be left

of ME.

The Princes

Tonight is the great Baye-Fall night. They have commandeered the mosques and are chanting, chanting until the early morning. Scooting through the market on my bike today running little errands, buying garlic to plant, onion seeds, I saw two gods. They were Baye Fall talibé, young men, dressed in the finest and noblest costumes I have seen to date. They each had shoulder length, perfectly hanging dreadlocks, nothing silly or shoddy about them, and they both seemed to be 7 feet tall. Whether by nature or by their poise, they were taller than everyone around them, and walked shoulder to shoulder in perfect step, looking like nothing so much as two princes, brothers, their bond and nobility deeper than any imagining. They were unbelievably, stunningly beautiful, the only people in many years to make my mouth actually fall open with admiration. I, riding my bike, came up on an intersection rather quickly and had to stop short to avoid hitting them. One of the princes turned his head ever so slightly to ward me off, not once actually noticing me, and I felt as an ant must when it strikes our shoe and we push it away, causing it to change its course.

It was such a gorgeous contrast. The market, the ridiculous Senegal market with its strolling women, thieves, lazy teenages, wobbly bicycles, clopping horses, filthy workers, shop owners screaming out Toubab! Chinois! Nar! HEY! pieces of fabric, rotton vegetables, manure, bargaining, total stinky, absurd, monstorous chaos...and these glorious princes strolling through never once breaking stride, while everyone else bumps and shoves and claws and whines, these two, taller than everyone, float past with the most beautiful dignity...

I actually circled back to try and see them again, but, as unlikely as it seems, they had melted into that insane syrup of color and incense and I couldn't find them again.

The princes. Human beings. Man as he is meant to be, the Man that was created in the image of God. Noble. Decent. Untouchable by the everyday and the common, not by force, but because their essence is guarded deep within their bodies, guarded scrupulously, cared for and loved.

Though I was the ant to their deity, I didn't feel small and mean. I felt only an intense admiration and I desire that, someday, I might be so beautiful.

unknown

They don't know
death is coming-
do they?

They don't know
god exists-
do they?

they don't know
it's already over.

The Light

There's something that comes
(through the light I wonder?)
quiet and sudden
that makes it all
cheap and worthless and cold.

the curtains
the curtains...
they weren't always so
ugly, so
desperate

even the precious books
become
colored dominos.

The light didn't change
the bulb burns steady,
it must be my eyes,
I must be tired
there must be a reason
that it's all gone
flat
inedible
hard.

Surfaces are strange,
cobbled and wired shut.
Corners park in the air
rudely
the pink paagne
that stupid pink paagne
its color is revolting.
Who made pink?
It is not God's color,
it is the color of
the strange night
the blear light
the drunken without drinkingness
the breathless air.

I long to be somewhere solid
a cavern
a cavern of legend!
huge and moist and sparkling
crystals or eyes.
crystals or eyes.
I want to feel the cavern enter me
breathe in the eyes and
let them see through my chest
in blurry red.
There, in the cavern, there would be
no pink
only a living grey mystery full of
water and stars
crystals and eyes

and I would crunch
deeper into the world
the eyes in my body leading me down
knowing the way
hands speaking to stone.
Nothing would could turn bleak there
the light comes from the rocks
and doesn't waver, doesn't
betray you in your room, alone,
turning the walls ugly and
the curtains piteous
and even your foot
a godless shade of pink.

First