Mourning, Again
by Kwame Dawes
After weeks of letting the hair cover my scalp,
I arrive in this raw place and ritualize the shave
so that my head is smoothly amphibian,
a scalp with the deep legend of furrows
and indentations. The attentive ones who run
their palms gently over the smooth surface
will prophecy the future and read my past.
These days, we old men sit and eat greens,
telling war stories of clogged arteries
and the close call of stents and aspirins.
We know that we are the lucky ones,
and the dead are our sacrificial gift-givers.
Soon we will be remembered for our deepening
silence. This is the great magic of how we outlive
ourselves, by rehearsing our own regimens,
by mourning of fortunes, our future and our deaths.
I arrive in this raw place and ritualize the shave
so that my head is smoothly amphibian,
a scalp with the deep legend of furrows
and indentations. The attentive ones who run
their palms gently over the smooth surface
will prophecy the future and read my past.
These days, we old men sit and eat greens,
telling war stories of clogged arteries
and the close call of stents and aspirins.
We know that we are the lucky ones,
and the dead are our sacrificial gift-givers.
Soon we will be remembered for our deepening
silence. This is the great magic of how we outlive
ourselves, by rehearsing our own regimens,
by mourning of fortunes, our future and our deaths.
Kwame Dawes is the author of numerous books of poetry and other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. His most recent collection Sturge Town (Peepal Tree Press, UK 2023) is a 2023 PBS Autumn Choice. Dawes is a George W. Holmes University Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner. He teaches in the Pacific MFA Program and is the Series Editor of the African Poetry Book Series, Director of the African Poetry Book Fund, and Artistic Director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. He is a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Kwame Dawes is the winner of the prestigious Windham/Campbell Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In 2022 Dawes was awarded the Order of Distinction Commander class by the Government of Jamaica.