A Black Poet Arna Bontemps Speaks
Arna Wendell Bontemps
(October 13,1902 - June 4, 1973)
DARK GIRL
Easy on your drums,
Easy wind and rain,
And softer on your horns,
She will not dance again.
Come easy little leaves
Without a ghost of sound
From the China trees
To the fallow ground.
Easy, easy drums
And sweet leaves overhead,
Easy wind and rain;
Your dancing girl is dead.
Arna Bontemps
THE DAYBREAKERS
We are not come to wage a strife
With swords upon this hill;
It is not wise to waste the life
Against a stubborn will.
Yet would we die as some have done;
Beating a way for the rising sun.
Arna Bontemps
MIRACLES
Doubt no longer miracles,
This spring day makes it plain
A man may crumble into dust
And straightway live again.
A jug of water in the sun
Will easily turn to wine
If love is stopping at the well
And love's brown arms entwine.
And you who think him only man,
I tell you faithfully
That I have seen Christ clothed in rain
Walking on the sea.
Arna Bontemps
SOUTHERN MANSION
Poplars are standing there still as death
And ghosts of dead men
Meet their ladies walking
Two by two beneath the shade
And standing on the marble steps.
There is a sound of music echoing
Through the open door
And in the field there is
Another sound tinkling in the cotton:
Chains of bondmen dragging on the ground.
The years go back with an iron clank,
A hand is on the gate,
A dry leaf trembles on the wall.
Ghosts are walking.
They have broken roses down
And poplars stand there still as death.
Arna Bontemps
NOCTURNE OF THE WHARVES
All night they whine upon their ropes and boom
against the dock with helpless prows:
these little ships that are too worn for sailing
front the wharf but do not rest at all.
Tugging at the dim gray wharf they think
no doubt of China and bright Bombay,
and they remember islands of the East,
Formosa and the mountians of Japan.
They think of cities ruined by the sea
and they are restless, sleeping at the wharf.
Tugging at the dim gray wharf they think
no less of Africa. An east wind blows
and salt spray sweeps the unattended decks.
Shouts of deadmen break upon the night.
The captain calls his crew and they respond--
the little ships are dreaming--land is near.
But mist comes up to dim the copper coast,
mist dissembles images of the trees.
The captain and his men alike are lost
and their shouts go down in the rising sound of waves.
Ah little ships, I know your weariness!
I know the sea-green shadows of your dream.
For I have loved the cities of the sea,
and desolatons of the old days I
have loved: I was a wanderer like you
and I have broken down before the wind.
Arna Bontemps