HER MAGISTRY
Song for Maya Angelou
Silent is the night, but not empty, it’s full
of that slow-paced, sentient waiting
for those dark and world-forming
voices of unrepentant liberty,
where queendoms rise
and stars betray they died
before they lit our eyes.
A sense of danger, rising from the North,
right through the helpless, abandoned tribe,
through the waist of a refugee child
it’s here, waiting to arrive, to arrive here
at this in-breath of our lunacy.
And so it is, the widow of eternity
aware through unfettered space
of each micro-managed, mute, flicker
of misery, she is that shapeless space
from where it comes in harmony,
unfolding helplessly in love,
singing her chains like the sea.
Freedom’s melody through song
as history sucks and throws its time
with a moon we took for tapestry
and a sun
that might never be lost or won.
