Requiem for a Tall Man (for Thomas Covington Dent 1932—1998)
2008; University of North Carolina Press; Volume: 40; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/slj.0.0004
ISSN1534-1461
Autores Tópico(s)Canadian Policy and Governance
ResumoRequiem for a Tall Man (for Thomas Covington Dent 1932—1998) Brenda Marie Osbey (bio) and so they took your heartbroken breaking poor strapped and strangledtook it as they'd taken dozens, hundreds beforeand tried to feed its own life's blood back to it on thesly.who could have seenbeyond such clotted paths to lovingbig enough if not for all the worldthen surely allthis cityto run right through?how connectthe many years of hurtingto be the thing you said you were?to learn your own thing well enough tohave iteven a littlethen pass it on?on.so they stapled you up the way they do these days and sent youhome."i'm so glad" you offered from your hospital bed that first afternoon"so glad i never really did anybody wrong"and you were afraidthe way only a good man can be. they will say that you were greaterwiserhipper [End Page 15] even taller than you werejust to sayor to avoid sayingthe deeper thing.we loved youfar better than we knew or cared to know.and you are not long enough goneto help us through it anyhow. there are tales the old people used to tell when the world was youngermore hungryless fearfulof losing coolof soldiers who came among us for a short time onlybringing peace.does anyone here understand the proverbial moment of silence?can we not always be testifying?can everybody please just shut the fuck up about it? death is a road.and those we love and those we've loved not well enoughwalk on it.we carry them the little ways along we canthen stand asideand watch them gosplitting memory and timewords like asunderare useful in such moments—slave ships in the distance—centuries longernearerthan we care ever to have it said. is it only we are oldermore lonely and afraidfull up on casualties of living and the giving-up-ness of it all? the people say your namein atlanta and d.c. [End Page 16] new york and memphischarleston, soweto, bayou goula and jacksonfriends and near-friendspleasure clubs and the holiest old diveschurches you never enteredexcept the briefest glance aboutasking with that wayward ardent need to know:are the people there?are the people really in there? juke-joints and side-alleys of despairsidewalk bars and caféswould-be variations on the sameare the people really in thereconjuring up your nameas if it meant something it never didor could?as ifconjuring yousomehow would bless their facessad, beshitted livesand after all the rest—much to your own belated dismay—famous at lastin the times-picayune. because we are here.because sometimes sweet soldiers die foolishly in the middle of asummer's afternoonstricken from us like—what?—between one ragged heartbeat and the next jive step. because somewheredahomey angels sing into the nightwhere?somewhere a koura plays cool round purpled notes.and eternal dusk.and the sweetest blackest coffee ever roasted over flameflows where?crazy laughter and footsteps of every face we ever loved. [End Page 17] and the river connecting every road.fields of cane strong as bambooyielding.fields of indigo, cypress and ricestands of palmettosavannas and midnight skyblack as your very heartand half as wide.and there is where the people are thereinsidea love so terrible and suresure as all get-outthat saints do step in congo-timehome to their one true citylike soldiersin times of peace. [End Page 18] Brenda Marie Osbey Brenda Marie Osbey is the author of All Saints: New and Selected Poems (LSU, 1997), which received the 1998 American Book Award. She is the author also of Desperate Circumstance, Dangerous Woman (Story Line, 1991), In These Houses (Wesleyan UP, 1988), and Ceremony for Minneconjoux (Callaloo Poetry Series, 1983; UP of Virginia, 1985). Her poems have appeared in...
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