by Kamau Brathwaite
their trumpets to heaven
Toot-Toot takes it up
in Havana
in Harlem
bridges of sound curve
through the pale rigging
of saxophone stops
the ship sails, slips on banana
peel water, eating the dark men.
Has the quick drummer nerves
after the stink of Sabbath's unleavened
cries in the hull? From the top
of the music, slack Bwana
Columbus rides out of the jungle's den.
With my blue note, my cracked note, full flatten-
ed fifth, my ten bebop fingers, my black bottom'd strut, Panama
worksong, my cabin, my hut,
my new frigged-up soul and God's heaven,
heaven, gonna walk all over God's heaven . . .
I furl
away from the trumpet
my bridge stops in the New York air
elevator speeds me to angels
heaven sways in the reinforced girders
God is glass with his type-
writer teeth, gospel
jumps and pings off the white
paper, higher and higher
the eagle's crook neck,
the vulture's talons, clutching tight
as a baby's fist, still knows
the beat of the root blood
up through the rocks, up through the torn
hummingbird trees, guitar strings, eyrie;
the buffaloes' boom through the dust plains,
the antelope's sniff at the water, eland's sudden hurl
through the hurdle of fire, runnels upwards to them
through the hoof of the world.
But here God looks out over the river
yellow mix of the neon lights
high up over the crouching cotton-wool green
and we float, high up over the sighs of the city
like fish in a gold water world
we float round and round
in the bright bubbled bowl
without hope of the hook
of the fisherman's tugging-in root
eyes without bait, snout
without words, teeth with nothing to kill,
skill of fin for a child's wonder,
pale scales for collectors to sell
and God, big eyes bulging
his glass house aglobe
floating floating in heaven
without feet without wind
without wing without thunder
no stone under him
no sound to carry earth up to his fathoms
no ground to keep him down near the gods