American Roots and Rebirth

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Billy Holiday, Jazz and Blues ringing true

to those stories of forever,

to memories of eternity:

Laralen singing “God Bless the Child”

at 420 South 22^nd Street,

Melanie's face aglow in adoration

of Lala and her song

as we pass the pipe.

Black Mamas with a capital M

and a capital B, too (though Mel had Auburn hair

and Laralen dirty blond).

Didn't much think about who was who

in terms of past lives lived,

in those days,

just took it for granted

we were here and now.

Since lovers like those two've become

most times mostly memory,

my reveries have conveyed my mind

to a claustrophobic sarcophagus,

my apparent interment after some other life,

and possibilities of who all we were and are

through the tumult of eternity,

incarnations and reincarnations,

love and loss and strange stories

that keep us entertained as we play

and ply our way through forever,

those songs and dances we are blessed

to sing and dance and play

as time goes by,

time and time again . . .