Artea Mae Beamon

she been walking here
on the other side of the road
since way back when
can you still remember then
mumbling to herself
in those low enchanting humms

 thick dusty braids they crown her head
with eyes looking there in the yonder
in old clothes that never fit just right
her long bony legs they bowed
by people they seen-ing her but never minding
her long melodic stride drumming here
in the squalor of splattered dark shadows
wallowing in the vomit of they drunken baptisms
mumbling to herself
in those low enchanting humms

and in the snare of a joke we poisoned her dead
burying all the words never did form on her lips
a moment’s reprise from our jealous despise
in the wake of her sordid demise
is all that she was ever given
mumbling to herself
in those low enchanting humms

and we go keeping on laughing trying to hide
from the festering guilt she bleeding here inside’us
with the strange haunting flaying of her eyes
and’us still standing around sitting
just like her seen’us here when
she coming along marching in a soldier’s splendor
dancing underneath her heavy load
that lightning stare daunting and cadently thrashing
scolding loudly in the silence of a mother’s care
at the swallowing enlarging of this numbing retarding
in which we all be always leaning on one another
just be leaning on one another here wait’n
and passing on all alone in her daily roam
mumbling to her self
in those low enchanting humms

Copyright (c) 1993 Asili Ya Nadhiri