Somatic Ritual Poem (#1)

Somatic Ritual Poem (#1)The Mapping Patricia Spears Jones (bio) Hub encircledLines—once surveyedAtop the farmed landOnce hunting, resting,Playing grounds for the LenapeThen Dutch gentle rousersMonied, profit seekingAll landed here. Give wayTo church bells, dark pewsGlassed windows brilliantly coloredHuge tree branches felledSettlers houses builtBurned downBuilt againRebuilt, profit making,Bricks arrive.And ex-slaves are forbiddenTo sit where they want toThe church rebukes their worshipOnly in Brooklyn are they treated [End Page 233] With equanimity—the pews availableTo all who find joy in the Word.And yet later, Isadora and her dancers arriveSwirling their floaty bodies, thenLater the radical priests, expandingTheir mission, the poor childrenFrom across Second Avenue, down 10thStreet, over to the Projects, their namesLive in stories collected in the railroadApartments home to many who hearThe bells but never enter the building.And then the poets loud come in, the trueChurchyard saints smoking near 11th StreetWhere the sad walking hookers trickedIn daylightThe poets loud, the trueSaints sit in chairs where the pewsOnce were. The fire. The pews.The brilliant colored windows glow.The poets loud circle the city’sDream scape, New Year’s DayThat old burst of Zion—Cross to the leftCross to the rightCars trucks busses, wheels upon wheelsThat old burst of ZionSirens blinking the will of named and unnamed ancestorsTraffic rolls down Second Avenue towardThe Battery, the edge of manaháhtaan that follyOur singing, those nautilus stars keep fallingBells ringBells ring [End Page 234] Patricia Spears Jones Patricia Spears Jones is a poet, writer, anthologist, and cultural activist. Author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems and nine other poetry publications and editor of the anthologies THINK: Poems for Aretha Franklin’s Inauguration Day Hat and Ordinary Women: An Anthology of Poetry by New York City Women. She is author of two plays commissioned by Mabou Mines: “Mother” and “A Song for New York: What Women Do When Men Sit Knitting.” Recipient of the 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize and awards from the NEA and NYFA. Fellowships to VCCA, Yaddo, Millay Colony, Rauschenberg Residency, and Camargo Foundation via The BAU Institute, Cassis, France. Emeritus Fellow for the Black Earth Institute and organizer of the American Poets Congress. www.psjones.com Copyright © 2021 State University of New York

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