Heyla! We have a story about the Spear-Danes, from the old days when they were big and their kings showed their strength. There was one king, Shield Schefing, who stole many mead-benches from other tribes and terrified their leaders. At first, he was...
We have forgotten Paris, and his fate. We have not much inquired If Menelaus from the Trojan gate Returning found the long desired Immortal beauty by his hearth. Then late,
Late, long past the morning hour, Could even she recapture from the dawn The young delightful love?...
Wherein are words sublime or noble? What Invests one speech with haloed eminence, Makes it the sesame for all doors shut, Yet in its like sees but impertinence? Is it the hue? Is it the cast of eye, The curve of lip or Asiatic breath, Which...
Hin-Mah-Too-Yah-Lat-Ket: Thunder-rolling in-the-mountains, never reached with his people, the Wal-lam-wat-kins, Canada’s promised land. Instead, the fugitive chief sits in a corner of the prison car clicking its way to Oklahoma. Chained to his warriors, he is like a featherless eagle forced to look at a sky...
Because of the unaccountable spirit of the troops oh we were marched as we were never marched before and flanked them off from home. Stupid Meade was after them, head on to tail, but we convinced him, finally, to flank, flank, cut off their...
There were still shards of an ancient pastoral in those shires of the island where the cattle drank their pools of shadow from an older sky, surviving from when the landscape copied such subjects as “Herefords at Sunset in the Valley of the Wye.” The...
How do I compare the costs Of leaving one system Of cooperation For another System of cooperation? How do I loosen the tongue Enough to inhabit The temple incognito? What are the people to me Until I condense my hesitations And drink in stillness with The rest of us, slightly drunk But...
The way to the toy store was blocked by a fallen tree in the road. There was a policeman directing traffic down a side street. I asked him, “What happened?” He said, “Lightning in the night.” I took...
The truth is, I’ve never cared for the National Anthem. If you think about it, it’s not a good song. Too high for most of us with “the rockets red glare” and then there are the bombs. (Always, always, there is war and bombs.) Once,...
I’m this tiny, this statuesque, and everywhere in between, and everywhere in between bony and overweight, my shadow cannot hold one shape in Omaha, in Tuscaloosa, in Aberdeen. My skin is mocha brown, two shades darker than taupe, your question is racist, nutmeg, beige, I’m...
1. Here I rest, in South Georgia. A few feet of evolution away lie the graves of whale hunters, pointing north. A white fence shields them from elephant seals and their apocalyptic screams that each day warn of the end of the world, or maybe the...
My children, my children, remember the day When the Drum Major of Freedom's parade went away. Stop crying now little children and listen And you will know for the future what really did happen.
You will know why your father was solemn and grim And...
Let it be known to all, the story Of the glorious struggle of my people. Let it be known that black men and women Helped to build this our country. Let it be known that black men and women of the past In an effort...