Filed Under Poetry & Poetics
Sunday Poetry Review
Because sharing poetry is sharing love and peace and all that is good with the world.
“All the World Moved” by June Jordan1
All the world moved next to me strange
I grew on my knees
in hats and taffeta trusting
the holy water to run
like grief from a brownstone
cradling.
Blessing a fear of the anywhere
face too pale to be family
my eyes wore ribbons
for Christ on the subway
as weekly as holiness
in Harlem.
God knew no East no West no South
no Skin nothing I learned like
traditions of sin but later
life began and strangely
I survived His innocence
without my own.
[Cross posted from The Unapolgetic Mexican]
- June Jordan. Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone: An Anthology of Innovative Poetry by African Americans, ed. Aldon Lynn Nielsen and Lauri Ramey, 136 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006). [↩]
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Oh, I’ve never seen this one. Thank you.
Her line breaks rule. And those last three lines. Love.
Thanks for participating in the act of sharing, and much gratitude for passing along June’s words. I was very happy to see them here and on the Unapologetic Mexican kindred site.
@Theriomorph: You’re welcome. I love this poem. And if you haven’t, you should definitely check the anthology that I took it from, Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone. There’s so much good stuff in there.
@Lauri Ramey: Welcome, Lauri. I’m honored that you found my site. I’ve been pushing your book since it first came out (I first read about it from Ron Silliman’s blog).