I well remember
A time when
“Amazing Grace” was
All the rage
In the South.
‘Happy’ black mothers arguing
Agreement with
Illiterate sweating preachers
Hemming and hawing blessedness
Meekness
Inheritance of earth, e.g.,
Mississippi cotton fields?
And in the North
Roy Hamilton singing
“What is America to me?”
Such a good question
From a nice slum
In North Philly.
My God! the songs and
The people and the lives
Started here—
Weaned on ‘happy’ tears
Black fingers clutching black teats
On black Baptist benches—
Some mother’s troubles that everybody’s
Seen
And nobody wants to see.
I can remember the rocking of
The church
And embarrassment
At my mother’s shouts
Like it was all—‘her happiness’—
Going to kill her.
My father’s snores
Punctuating eulogies
His loud singing
Into fluffy grey caskets
A sleepy tear
In his eye.
Amazing Grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch
Like me
I once was lost
But now I’m found
Was blind
But now
I see.
Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward, Fats Waller,
Ray Charles,
Sitting here embarrassed with me
Watching the birth
Hearing the cries
Bearing witness
To the child,
Music.