VISION
I watched from the earth,
low in dry grass, trying
not to breathe, blink, or stir.
Gray mist spilt from the lips
of men dressed like Pilgrims, like Custer,
like Mounties. I don’t know when
I was. Or where. Everywhere,
everywhen, was the point.
Dark morning or late day, I
watched continents reunite,
watched mountains kiss and blur.
All that had been severed
was married back to itself.
Deep seams of reunification
scarred the whole of the earth,
the error of division mended—
or else it was time itself I saw,
rolling forward and back. I saw
white men unloading figures
from ships, trucks, crates. Efficient
and perfunctory, like art handlers,
only the bodies were living: bound
at the wrists, iron complicating
their necks. I strained to watch
and comprehend the system, its
logics, these agents operating
in obedience to mechanics
and nothing more. How do I say
that what I was shown I saw
from farther away than a body will
ever go? Past history and argument.
Past victors and vanquishment.
Up and off. Or down and in
to the trillion atoms swirling in
every cell. Inarguable. Under
a tent in June, a whole clan
of giddy families gathered one
buggy night. Bonfire light. I was
watching from tall grass and then—
So soon? But how?—from a tree’s
high bough, strung up, swaying
to the mob’s intention, that old
familiar song all know or come to learn.
Before I could ache or yell, I swept
past the stars I recognize, past
the edges of this or any night,
past the clamor of humankind
until I was no longer alone, and
it was not for my own body that I cried.
Not for vengeance or mercy. Not
for any single sin, nor any blood spilt
that was not all blood. For the moan
wrung from all throats and all men
all seasons on earth. By which I mean:
Divine was the grief. The whole
unceasing universe gathered to watch
and ache as the earth whirred and spun
in its place, as the families packed up,
the armies dispersed, the rivers
swole and overflowed their banks.
(Tracy K. Smith)
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