California Prodigal
Viewed 1261 timesCalifornia Prodigal
by Maya Angelou
FOR DAVID P—B
The eye follows, the land
Slips upward, creases down, forms
The gentle buttocks of a young
Giant. In the nestle,
Old adobe bricks, washed of
Whiteness, paled to umber,
Await another century.
Star Jasmine and old vines
Lay claim upon the ghosted land,
Then quiet pools whisper
Private childhood secrets.
Flush on inner cottage walls
Antiquitous faces,
Used to the gelid breath
Of old manors, glare disdainfully
Over breached time.
Around and through these
Cold phantasmatalities,
He walks, insisting
To the languid air,
Activity, music,
A generosity of graces.
His lupin fields spurn old
Deceit and agile poppies dance
In golden riot. Each day is
Fulminant, exploding brightly
Under the gaze of his exquisite
Sires, frozen in the famed paint
Of dead masters. Audacious
Sunlight casts defiance
At their feet.
Miscellany
Other poems by Maya Angelou (read randomly)
When I was young, I used to
Watch behind the curtains
As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old
The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
Her arms semaphore fat triangles,
Pudgy hands bunched on layered hips
Where bones idle under years of fatback
One innocent spring
your voice meant to me
less than tires turning
When love is a shimmering curtain
Before a door of chance
That leads to a world in question
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk
One paints the beginning
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s siz …
But when I start to tell them,
A last love,
proper in conclusion,
should snip the wings
Beloved,
In what other lives or lands
Have I known your lips
Soft grey ghosts crawl up my sleeve
to peer into my eyes
while I within deny their threats
Your hands easy
weight, teasing the bees
hived in my hair, your smile at the
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
