POST CARD TO PROFESSOR EDDIE S. GLAUDE, JR. FROM YAKIMA

 

BEGIN AGAIN, HE SAYS, IN THE AFTER TIME

                Begin Again: James Baldwin's America

              And Its Urgent Lessons For Our Own

                           --Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

 

Backward letters on a shower curtain

tells a story about asylum seekers,

scheduled deportation flights,

No Están Solo, no you're not--

No We're Not. Here's a post card

poem written to a Poetry Pole,

hand-stamped at the post office,

Professor Glaude, grateful for your all,

how much do I love what you say

about Coltrane's Pursuance,

your insight a sustaining epiphany.

A love supreme. Racial philanthropists,

Ouch! No name connecting

with Emerson. But what

a way to Whitman! The After Times.

Your walk to the abyss

into yourself. Your Dad,

thanks again, road trip

in and out of Montgomery.

Lucky students facing courage.

Highway 65. Jimmy was right.

The evasion, the evasion.

This note before ICE flight

witness, Yakima, 60 minutes.

 

Jim Bodeen

31 July--8 September 2020

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