Mary Angela Coleman

And Darkness Was on the Face of the Deep

from An Etiology: Culture to Culture

¹Tend to the white space
between letters, around words, across
gutters where orality quivers, bustles
and plays, while matron saints attend its
echoes in the margins of space.
     ^2"Since August 26, 1746," they
have attended, even while Being
brought from Africa to America and
giving Advice to Young Ladies. They
heard the space like Harper heard The
Slave Mother.
     ³LikeHenrietta and Margaret, the
last, not yet bleached representations
who wrote for My People. Like Brooks'
resonance of African and foreshadow of
urban. ⁴"Why beautiful, still, black
finger are you pointing upwards?"
     ⁵Like Mari who echoes in Anne
who echoes in the dusk of Georgia who
echoes in Naomi who echoes in even
the presidential inauguration of Maya--
pinnacles and perils.
     ⁶Thanking the Lorde for echoes
of women.
     ⁷When I am thirty and "it is
midnight/here is my hand/I am not afraid
of the night." Stretching into space,
into the echoes, over Cliffs and picking
Sunflower Sonnets for Nikki like
Carolyn, like Ntozake, like Wanda, like
Haryette, like Rita, like Alice. All
begotten and begot in the same
space--echoing vocation.
     ⁸Libations. Liberations. Be
vociferous at liberty.
     ⁹Viviparous--when you are gone,
your echoes will find dark and settle and
root.

 

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