UPON YOUR LEAVING
(for Sonia)


- Etheridge Knight


Night

and in the warm blackness

your woman smell filled the room

and our rivers flowed together. became one

my love's patterns. our sweat/drenched bellies

made flat cracks as we kissed

like sea waves lapping against the shore

rocks rising and rolling and sliding back.


And your sighs softly calling my name

became love songs child/woman songs

old as a thousand years new as the few

smiles you released like sacred doves. and I

fell asleep, ashamed of my glow, of my halo, and

ignoring them who waited below

to take you away when the sun rose. . . .


Day

and the sunlight playing in the green leaves

above us fell across your face traced the tears

in your eyes and love patterns in the wet grass

and as they waited inside in triumphant patience

to take you away as I begged you to stay.

"but, etheridge," you said, "I don't know what to do."

and the love patterns shifted and shimmered in your eyes.


And

after they had taken you and gone, the day

turned stark white landscape, I turned and entered

into the empty house and fell on the floor.

laughing. trying to fill the spaces your love had left.

knowing that we would not remain apart long,

our rivers and flowed together.

we are one

and are strong.


from �The Essential Etheridge Knight.
Copyright @1986 by Etheridge Knight.
Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.