Lucille Clifton and Sekou Sundiata
I went to a reading yesterday with Lucille Clifton at Bryn Mawr. Before she started reading, she was chatting with the audience in her grandmotherly way, and somehow in the conversation, Sekou Sundiata came up. She smiled at the mention of his name and then her eyeglassed eyes dropped their gaze to her clutching hands. She looked like she was praying. After a moment, when she looked up, she told us how they had read her poem "blessing the boats" at his funeral.
Yes, funeral. Sekou Sundiata died.
I was shocked and deeply saddened when I heard this. Sekou came to our high school at the end of last year as part of a Visiting Poets Series that the English Department maintains. He held three different workshops that day, and I went to every one of them. I wrote the article in our newspaper about him. I talked to him, I shook his hand, I looked at him in the eyes. He wasn't old, he didn't look sick, so why did this happen? I remember him talking about his grandchildren, telling us how he read to them all the time. I remember how he said when he gets a good line in his head, he texts it to his daughter so that he doesn't lose it. I remember him, and now that he's gone, that's all I can do.
"The Sounds of Memory"
for Sekou Sundiata
When you shook my hand,
I felt nothing of death.
When you stood
behind a dark wood podium
and told us about your
grandchildren,
I imagined you could
stand there all day, smiling,
playing the deep, breathy instrument
of your voice.
Never did I think
that your lips would kiss
around last words
less than a year
from when you sang the sounds of memory
and the woman beside me wept.
It was Lucille who told me you had died,
and I felt like she blew you out of my life.
I felt like she threw the broken wind of her news
into the sails of those St. Mary's boats
and you, waving and smiling from one of the decks,
you were carried away. The wind wasn't strong,
it caught on the bone-colored sails
like anxious inhales, yours.
You can breathe now, Sekou.
You can cherish your breath
and let it sink slowly
as if you dropped it from your boat.
Watch it fall through the ocean;
You belong to something now.
You belong to the sounds of my memory,
You belong to my secrets
and to the swish, swish
of my ocean's mournful breathing.
Yes, funeral. Sekou Sundiata died.
I was shocked and deeply saddened when I heard this. Sekou came to our high school at the end of last year as part of a Visiting Poets Series that the English Department maintains. He held three different workshops that day, and I went to every one of them. I wrote the article in our newspaper about him. I talked to him, I shook his hand, I looked at him in the eyes. He wasn't old, he didn't look sick, so why did this happen? I remember him talking about his grandchildren, telling us how he read to them all the time. I remember how he said when he gets a good line in his head, he texts it to his daughter so that he doesn't lose it. I remember him, and now that he's gone, that's all I can do.
"The Sounds of Memory"
for Sekou Sundiata
When you shook my hand,
I felt nothing of death.
When you stood
behind a dark wood podium
and told us about your
grandchildren,
I imagined you could
stand there all day, smiling,
playing the deep, breathy instrument
of your voice.
Never did I think
that your lips would kiss
around last words
less than a year
from when you sang the sounds of memory
and the woman beside me wept.
It was Lucille who told me you had died,
and I felt like she blew you out of my life.
I felt like she threw the broken wind of her news
into the sails of those St. Mary's boats
and you, waving and smiling from one of the decks,
you were carried away. The wind wasn't strong,
it caught on the bone-colored sails
like anxious inhales, yours.
You can breathe now, Sekou.
You can cherish your breath
and let it sink slowly
as if you dropped it from your boat.
Watch it fall through the ocean;
You belong to something now.
You belong to the sounds of my memory,
You belong to my secrets
and to the swish, swish
of my ocean's mournful breathing.