Eloquent and fiery, activist June Jordan remains one of my favorite poets although her output stopped when she passed in 2002. There are so many poems I can choose but this quiet one is what I’ve decided to share. It is quiet and vivid.
Roman Poem Number Six by June Jordan
You walk downstairs
to see this man who moves so
quietly in a dark room
where there are balancing
scales on every table.
Signore D’Ettore can tell
you anything about
communications if you mean
the weight the price
pf letters
packages
and special post cards.
Hunch-back
short
his grey hair always groomed
meticulous
with a comb and just a touch
of grease
for three months
he has worn the same well
tailored suit
a grey suit quite unlike
his hair.
I find it restful
just to watch him making
judgements all of us accept.
“But are you sad/”, he asks
me looking up.
“The world is beautiful
but men are bad,” he says in
slow Italian.
I smile with him but still the problem
is not solved.
The photographs of Rome
must reach my father but the big
official looking book seems blank
the finger-nail of Signor D’Ettore
seems bind and wandering
from line to line among the countries
of a long
small-printed list
“Jamaica? Where is Jamaica?”
I am silent. My Italian
is not good enough to say, “Jamaica
is an island where you can find
calypso roses sunlight and an old man
my father
on his knees.”
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From New Days – poems of exile and return by June Jordan
Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month, held every April, is the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture.