FOR QUINCY TROUPE % OF KEVIN YOUNG

 

FIRST THINGS

for Quincy Troupe % of Kevin Young

While coffee brews in kitchen

I’m in bathroom getting ready

for morning, two books on cabinet,

I pick up Kevin Young’s Blues Poems,

lovely Everyman’s fitting like a song

in my hand, Bessie’s arms open

in sequins, her singing smile

and Quincy Troupe’s woke up

cry for severed sight of another day.

4 April 1968, writing for Martin.

Recounting the morning after,

subliminal sadness being his third key,

absorbing me. The other two,

creative joy and happiness.

I walk the yard at sunrise

trees opened for songbirds,

and songbirds here in the dogwood,

thistle-full finches on feeder.

Long shadows in stones and me

with sun on my back. Lost futures

in sand and sun. Blue cloth covering.

Quincy Troupe writes three poems,

makes love, a poem accepted.

I’m in Viet Nam on that day,

85^th Evac Hospital, sending soldiers home,

writing about that last night

to a woman still with me,

I’m with three black brothers

all of us asking about ourselves

and going home to what.

It’s in the letter, Kevin.

Get it to Quincy. It’s sunshine,

here, songbird beautiful,

but it was Quincy and the blues

that started the morning.

Jim Bodeen

3 May 2021