Lady Day
for Billie Holiday
Lady could pour you a song,
Coffee and a little cream.
Stir it the whole night long
Into a brown-sugar dream.
Lady could wrap you a note
Up in a velvet night—
Sometimes Manhattan satin,
Always Harlem delight.
Lady Day could sing it
Like nobody ever has
At the Shim Sham Club, Hot Cha Cha,
Joints that swung on jazz.
Her bittersweet songs told Heartbreak,
Meet your sister Pain,
But Lady melted yesterdays
Into beautiful rain.
Copyright Credit: J. Patrick Lewis, "Lady Day (for Billie Holiday)" from Freedom Like Sunlight: Praisesongs for Black Americans, published by Creative Editions. Copyright © 2000 by J. Patrick Lewis. Reprinted by permission of J. Patrick Lewis.
Source: Freedom Like Sunlight: Praisesongs for Black Americans (Creative Editions, 2000)