James Baldwin

1

I always wonder
what they think the niggers are doing
while they, the pink and alabaster pragmatists,
are containing
Russia
and defining and re-defining and re-aligning
China,

If the hope of giving
is to love the living,
the giver risks madness
in the act of giving.

Some such lesson I seemed to see
in the faces that surrounded me.

Needy and blind, unhopeful, unlifted,
what gift would give them the gift to be gifted?

The lady is a tramp
a camp
a lamp

The lady is a sight
a might
a light
the lady devastated
an alley or two

In a strange house,
a strange bed
in a strange town,
a very strange me
is waiting for you.

Now
it is very early in the morning.
The silence is loud.

Lord,
when you send the rain
think about it, please,
a little?
Do
not get carried away
by the sound of falling water,
the marvelous light