And the long march through wilderness
And out and into wild once more,
The olive leaves of each new shore
Spelling out writs of dispossess.
Our own diasporas begin
With first steps toward a rising sun,
Shading themselves, before they've done,
Conducting their own evening in.
May we live past this winter, then
When harps are cold and fingers numb,
Jerusalemed, the year to come,
In one another's arms again.
Rita Dove
CRAB·BOIL
(Ft . Myers, 1962)
Why do I remember the sky
above the forbidden beach,
why only blue and the scratch,
shell on tin, of their distress?
The rest
imagination supplies:
bucket and angry pink beseeching
claws. Why does Aunt Helen
laugh before saying "Look at that-
a bunch of niggers, not
a-one get out 'fore the others pull him
back." I don't believe her-
