Alain Locke Delivers the Mail

AFTER WRITING A LETTER TO A FRIEND

I put Alain Locke's commemorative stamp

on the envelope. Sartorial one, dressed to go out,

elegant messenger of letters,

Dean of the Harlem Renaissance.

I am not a race problem.

I am Alain LeRoy Locke.

First African-American Rhodes Scholar.

Art must discover and reveal the beauty

which prejudice and caricature have overlaid.

Supporter of Zora Neale Hurston.

(With a new story in this month's Harper's.)

Proudly pagan, Baha'i Faith.

Elusive on the stamp,

900-page biography sparks no fire

ernest abundance remembers,

…dance is the cradle of Negro music--

I get nothing until I remember Langston.

Walls of achievement eclipsing the inside man.

Not so much interested in mentoring the women.

What is happening to others is happening to you.

What Baldwin calls darkness full of sorrow.

Weary blues and Langston Hughes

Alain LeRoy Locke on a Forever stamp.

On its way to meet my friend.

Love story of how a story opens.

All this traveling to be a man.

Jim Bodeen

25 June--20 July 2020