Cal E. Rollins  

poet, U.S.A.

Twelve Strawberries on a Terra-cotta Plate: A Mediatation

...but the Son of man hath not where...
Matt 8:20

They rest on a cherry table, polished, old,
its body bowed like a corseted lady.
Lemon wall and curtains, softer yellow,
move together in the open window. Yellow
cat eyes stare in the shadow
where the berries are cool.

In another life, I pluck their stems,
feed them one by one. Hold the cup too,
know it better, drink deeper than all others.
I pull down the sky as a coverlet for the Son
of man, scattering, foxes and birds; soothe that
sweet brow; play on my lyre the music
that brings peace at this time of day
the air is cooling.

from No Roosters in This Blue City, 1999,
Kalimat Press, U.S.A.

Close Encounter

I have no quarrel
with any other aliens.

Flying this earth
in a saucer smaller
than myself,
I've passed
around the full moon and back,
thriving on light

and taking prisoners
from childhood. In praise
of the heavens without end
or beginning, I stand for you
as naked as a jaybird.

from the collection of poems, MALE RAIN,
which can be ordered for $14 from:
Kalimat Press, U.S.A.

Americanization of Beauregard

Cousin Beauregard tried settling
in Senegal, then France, but came back
cured of wandering and with a concept of home.

"He could parlez-vous with the best of 'em, "
Uncle Beauchamp said to me, holding
his fishing pole with both hands.
"But he couldn't fool nobody."

"Why didn't he like France? Especially Paris?"

"He liked 'em alright, but they didn't like him."
"Uncle Beauchamp, many blacks live there!"

"I suspect there's a difference 'tween livin' and bein'.
He wasn't no Frenchman.
The Statue of Liberty was black, but French.
Not Beau. He too steeped in the American side
of history and politics.
And wastin' hot water.

He wasn't no African neither. Don't even
look like one."

Just then the catfish caught.

Letter: November 2003
I was talking with my friend, Humberto, again about Celia Cruz, the Cuban Queen of Salsa, and how she so wanted to return to Cuba, her homeland, but, of course, couldn't live and work there under the Castro regime.

Immediately I was reminded that Cuba was the holding station for African slaves entering the Americas and that Celia was probably the progeny of some of them just as was I. She never could go home again. Can any American black person whose ancestors were slaves ever go home again?

Here is one of my poems touching on that quandry.

Obatala Santeria

for Robert Hayden

You are glued against the blue sky.
I am behind you where we sit on the hill,
and the tiny insects play in the sunlight.

This vision is clear:

two Uruba boys, one browner than the other,
peer over the ledge into a shoal; white,
blue, red, yellow fish are jewels in the water,
captives waiting for tide's rescue.

"That one, the white is Obatala; by his side
is Yemaya, Blue Queen of all the waters."

The dark one laughs, "And Chango, of fire
and war. He's there. Beloved Ochun, too,
yellow Goddess of love and river crossings."

Those two do not know they are in the dead
place in Cuba's belly. Are not yet pushed
into the vortex of pain that will last.
They do not hear their blood gush and lap
in us like the waves; and cannot
feel the pull, the thrashing in our veins.

As you talk in the sun of mauve and green
afternoons, write in my mind huge poems
of mornings in San Miguel, smoke
from the chimneys in Cuernavaca,
I build an altar, a santeria
of grass, twigs, and soft words.

Cal E. Rollins

In the article "On Robert Hayden"
Arts Dialogue, No. 59, Nov. 2002, page 13