Reunion: August '89 - poem

African American Review, Winter, 1993 by Linwood M. Ross

I can feel it sometimes inside the harmonies of a dozen sister cousins aunts & womenfamily sittin in the august sun fannin themselves. Busy gossipin bout we "mens" & our "trampy" womenfriends & stuff. My ears are held hostage to hearin . . . "Lawd, boy, stop yo signifyin!" & the sweet intrusion of laughter sends their concert to the air .

. . I feel it sometimes in phantom moments when I'm mellow. Watchin little double-dutch chocolate girls of shiny knees & African hair style. Magic in their fast feets. Sweepin senses in me so loud when they say: "Yobaby, yobaby, yo." & I know they are future stars. I feel it sometimes when the menfolk gather in a tiny kitchen to share a warm bottle of tequila & beer chasers in paper cups. As smiles & silences ping-pong between us in this secret solidarity of our patented handshakes. In the strange-jazz quiver of our embraces. Yeah, I feel it sometimes . . . seein new children trying to rise. This determination fixed in their eyes when standin & fallin when landin & crawlin & tryin to climb stairs. Funny, how I see me . . . in their faces. Startlin how they seem to mimic me . . . Tyds black man in the world . . & somethin races & swirls inside me. & I feel it sometimes when the sun shines on our spirit on large days. & in little people. I can hear it in our silences & manic conversations. I see it in the reverie of a moon looming its silver insinuation into a slow summer's day. & I feel it sometimes in the easy flaunt & sway of bermuda shorts while dancin our impromptu dances to rhythm & blues music. I feel it transmuted inside the hoverin high of nappyheaded kids chasin a school of fireflies . . . Yeah, this soft & sappy poet in me still feels IT sometimes. Frozen & crystanized right before my eyes like a colored photograph of: happy.