Dance-Walking on the Waters of Langston’s Rivers

(Inspired by the photograph by Chester Higgins, Jr.)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXFor Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou

Who’s that dancing up over Langston’s head?
Who’s that upstairs above Langston’s sleeping bed?
Who’s that swinging to that jitterbuggin’ beat?
You know, it must be that boy LeRoi and that girl Marguerite!

In that moment you were not the great Black Poets
Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou
Naw, not in that moment…
On that day in that moment you were just
LeRoi from Newark and Marguerite from Stamps
Two black teenagers returned for a few minutes
to the colored negro nineteen fifties
Just look at the two of you
dancing up over Langston’s head
whirling and twirling and stepping
in hand dance laughter and joy
Look at the two of you
stirring up the ashes of Langston
swinging and stomping and slipping and sliding
to the songs and the music
as black as Harlem-hot summer-night asphalt
Look at the two of you
jitterbugging over the Jazz of Langston
to that long loving legacy of Black voices
that sang and shouted to free and sanctify the spirit
Look at the two of you
cutting a rug on top of Langston’s rooftop
showing us you remember the places and spaces
our bodies and spirits needed to move into
when they needed to feel what they needed to feel
after being snatched from Africa’s dark soul
From Frankie Lymon to Frankie Beverly
The drumming messages the black heart
sends to the hips and legs and the feet

Yeah, and you two are dance-walking
on the waters of Langston’s rivers

And there really is nothing white here:
This is sounds of wicked Wilson Pickett and Bobby Blue Bland
howling out the screen door of the smoke filled dance floor
at Miss Mamie’s lowdown Sugar shack country road joint
This is all funky summer nights in the projects
slippery soles somehow sliding on sticky linoleum floors
This is soft blue lights in the basement or ghetto jukebox
This is Thunderbird wine and waistline hops and loud rent parties
and Sam Cooke songs echoing soulfully in the hallway
This is Little Richard screams and Jackie Wilson splits
This is doo rag and late night doo wop on the corner
This is Smokey slow drags and Temptation walks
This is Etta James shaking big yellow ass all across the stage
and James Brown sweating ugly and funkin’ on The One

Yeah, and you two are dance-walking
on the waters of Langston’s rivers

So naw, in that moment on that day
you were not the great Black literary figures
Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou
On that day in that moment your were just
young LeRoi from Newark and sweet Marguerite from Stamps
And when their history books try to minimize
and marginalize who you were and what you did
When they try to tell us that what you wrote
was just too political or just too overrated
and that you were only blues people and caged birds
Some of us who knew who you really were
will just smile and look at this photograph
and be reminded of how your life’s work
always simply taught us to love
and how your living life
always taught us simply
to love how we be.