Table of Contents
I Lyric Histories
A Wreath for Emmett Till 3
From The Freedom Business
Witness 10
Pestilence 11
A Voyage by Sea 12
Keeper of the Keys 13
Fat on the Fire 15
Meg 16
Cows in the Shade 17
Sap Rising 18
Farm Garden 19
The Freedom Business 20
From Fortune's Bones: The Manumission Requiem
On Abrigador Hill 21
Dinah's Lament 23
Not My Bones 24
From Seneca Village
Sky-Land 26
Conductor 28
The Cotillion 29
Address 30
Thompson and Seaman Vows, African Union Church 31
Words and Whispers 32
Little Box 34
Miracle in the Collection Plate 35
Sisters of Charity 37
Uncle Epiphany 38
From Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color
The Book 39
Family 40
The Tao of the Trial 41
Miss Ann Eliza Hammond 42
Etymology 43
Albert Hinkley 44
Worth 45
From Carver: A Life in Poems
Watkins Laundry and Apothecary 46
Old Settlers' Reunion 48
Four a.m. in the Woods 49
Cafeteria Food 50
Called 51
My People 52
Chemistry 101 53
From an Alabama Farmer 54
Bedside Reading 55
Poultry Husbandry 57
1905 59
Veil-Raisers 61
How a Dream Dies 62
The Dimensions of the Milky Way 64
Ruellia Noctiflora 65
Goliath 67
House Ways and Means 68
"God's Little Workshop" 69
Eureka 71
Mineralogy 72
Last Talk with Jim Hardwick 74
Moton Field 75
From Sweethearts of Rhythm
Bugle Call Rag 76
Chattanooga Choo-Choo 77
Jump, Jump, Jump 78
She's Crazy with the Heat 79
Red-Hot Mama 80
That Man of Mine 81
Improvisation, 1948 82
Drum Solo, 1950 83
The Song Is You 84
II Other Selected Poems
From The Cachoeira Tales and Other Poems
Faster Than Light 87
Cachoeira Tales 92
General Prologue 92
C.I.A. 97
Harmonia and Moreen 97
Baixa Mall 99
Olodum 105
A Igreja do Nossa Senhor do Bonfim 109
Triolets for Triolet 113
III New and Uncollected Poems
Millie-Christine 119
A Small Good News 126
Little Dialogue with the Muse 127
First Alzheimer's Sonnet 128
Second Alzheimer's Sonnet 129
The Truceless Wars 130
Live Jazz, Franklin Park Zoo 131
To the Confederate Dead 132
Bivouac in a Storm 135
Six-Minute Dogfight 137
Written in Clouds 138
Honor Guard 139
Eternal Optimist 140
Psalm for Another People 141
Nine Times Nine, on Awe 142
In the Waiting Room 145
The Mohembo Road 148
For the Feast of Corpus Christi 152
How to Be Human Now 154
The Contemplative Life 154
The Language of the Absolute 155
Stone Adze 156
The Risk Unto Death 157
Truth and Beauty 157
La Gare Central 157
Where Humanity Begins 157
Nothing Stranger 158
From "Adventure-Monk!" 159
