senzo
carnegie hall, october 19, 2014
beauty eludes me, usually. i soak
up the lush red, violet, indigo blooms
abdullah ibrahim’s cool fingers pluck
from the keyboard’s bed, but bring to these ‘rooms’
(stanzas forged from replayed past as today’s
not-news) no solacing bouquets. my weeds?
i conjure rough green to rupture from seeds
so furious they bleed — or, grieving, raise
crabgrass and blue notes, peppered with rust,
where he grows flowers. yes, i tend my plants
incisively : no phrase that droops or wants
out of the sun survives long. but the rest
run wild, flush vivid, throw shade, deluge fruit,
lavishly express their dissonant root.Source: Poetry (January 2016)