Translation (Thinking of Enoch) for Black People
The spirits
we are
live like leaves bowing trees
curtsying, breaking & fencing
into winds.
brushing, bruising & mingling
with each other.
I say,
we will live.
no death is a
singular unregenerating
event.
we will continue to be
constant
to flux
into each other
and surmount
the itinerant style of
the incalculable storms.
Notes:
From The Heart as Ever Green (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1978). Reproduced with permission of Nina Rodgers Gordon.
This poem is part of the portfolio “Carolyn Marie Rodgers: What Beauty We Now Have” from the October 2022 issue.
Source: Poetry (October 2022)