Returning in Another Form

I finished National Poetry Month with Kingdom Animalia, a collection by Aracelis Girmay.  Many of the poems are dark but hopeful, like this one:

“Dear Minnie, Dear Ms.”

This earth
          of the dagger-toothed & hawks,
whose names we know,
taking bones for diamonds,
          full of hair & snakes,
earth eating you, slowly,
          below the sound
          of gold horns.

This earth
          with a jaw in its hand.
Brown-chariot, take-you-home
earth, chew you up
          with the quiet work
of animals & trees, underworld
          churning you through
          the dark engines
          of its appetite. This

earth we opened up
          & buried you in, our
treasure, we miss
you, we miss you
          with all life. This night
we think we will never close
          again. We are pinned open
          like a scientist’s moths
          to leave you there dressed
          in a box & earth around you.
This box earth, coffin
          earth. Teeth earth eat
your chest through, laced
by the wrangle of beetles & worms
          & ants who carry your bright pieces
like market cloth over their heads
          to feeds you to the queen
          in the deeper corridors
          of mysteries & dirt.

Trust the queen is you.

Trust the mud is you,
& the soft, silver afro of the dandelion.

Trust the grass-whistle might be
your speech, high as the whistle
of the whale. Trust

we’ll know your shape, whatever species
in you answers when we put our faces
to the dirt & call you by
your old & human name.

Some of my other favorites include “Ode to the Little ‘r’,” “Central City Senior Center, New Orleans,” “Night, for Henry Dumas,” and “On Kindness.”