"A Coffee Talk," A Poetry Post

One cup of coffee
bridged
seventy years between us.

I admit I
took the
first three long sips.

I then leaned over and
inclined my head to
nestle my vision
under your faraway gaze.

I watched you fade away
to the edge that
women go to:
eyes glossed over,
breath quieted,
nerves shaking...

I waited to see if you would go over.

When you came back,
I was almost shocked.

Then I realized who was holding the cup.

With seventy years between us
and a body gone fresh from a
long three weeks,
we sat there at a bedside table,
looking.

Nobody hollered,
nobody shivered,
nobody said a word,
but we both knew what the other was saying.

It was this hardness--
your hardness--
that let me offer the coffee.

It was this resemblance
that let us both drink it.

-T. D. James-Moss

"The Tree's Wisdom," A Poetry Post

Stretch out a little since the
sky and its air are so
wide.

Grab you some sunshine.

When your contemporaries crowd you and
reach their hands into your
sunlight,
reach higher.

Challenge your stature.

When you are whipped back and forth by
the elements of life,
bend left, right or down.

When it gets real heavy,
get down on the ground.

And if you break,
hold on.

With your roots in tact,
your broken places will live,
and your shards will reknit.

Serve your community.
Let the weary find rest in your arms.
Let the hungry find food in your hands.
Let the frightened find refuge in your habitation.

Be sure to
adjust to life's seasons.

When men come in to take your bounty,
cutting away at your foundation,
remember your creator and his handiwork.

It will take more than a man's mere intentions
to cut you down.

Produce fruits worthy of your beauty and
in accordance with your purpose.

Offer the world your roughness and your sap,
your stability and your flexibility.

Be terrifying and enlightening.

Enjoy the strength and legacy that
come with age.

And definitely,
be found doing what
you were made to do.

When you are gone,
the air won't be the same
without you.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Words for a Dying Uncle," A Poetry Post

You were the first of us to believe
that a ghetto girl could be a princess.

It was unusual for a
black boy born on
Prince Street to keep
so clean; and,

it was laughable to others that a
man would choose
cosmetics and catering over
sports and womanizing
in the 60s.

These are the behaviors that
separated you from your peers;
and,
these were the avenues to your
pursuit of beauty.

Don't think I can overlook the
regalization of black faces during a
time of racial degradation sir.

To some,
you were the equivalent of a
gay man playing
dollhouse with
living black barbies, but
to others!

To others you were a
window into ballrooms and
parties and flash photography.

You put the black girl on one of
few pedestals available to her by
moisturizing her wooly hair and
puckering her thick, smart mouth into
something fashionable.

The gowns and the food and the music,
the gowns and the food and music
transformed unwed mothers and
corner-store-runners and
babysitters into
more than duck and cover or
under-the-cover girls.

Catwalks inspired field women to
cocoa butter up their
mahogany brown legs and
wear the slit on the
thick black woman's thigh.

Family recipes made
silent women talk.

"Mmm," they would say.
"What did you put in this and
how can I be this
magnificent?"

Little yard weddings became
soirees fit for queens and kings,
ornamented with chafing dishes full of
delicacies black families had
never seen.

And the bride,
"My GOD!" they would say.
"Who mounted her
coils like that?"

"Hmm," some quiet colored girl would say.

"That little black man in the back
cooking up that food
did that. You must know him?!"

Now that you're dying,
nobody's saying anything.

Perhaps they are afraid to see you
outside of the designer suits they were
so enchanted with,
the remarkable shades that
nobody else was wearing.

Maybe they can't imagine you
laying here like you are,
not saying anything,
not being the life of the party,
not dillydallying around the girls' hair.

It is HARD FOR THEM TO SEE
the primary judge of their food's value
unable to eat at all.

But I see you
just the way you were the
first time you put this
pretty girl's great big hips into a
dress...

A pretty girl that
hadn't yet digested the
concept of maintenance.

You are the same,
just unable to provide for yourself
the glamour you created
for others.

Let me then provide you with the reasonable foods,
the appropriate wardrobe.

I will dress you again in your best suit.

I will spray on the eau de toilette.

After you have gone on,
I will continue to bring into our blackness
the beauty that you lived to reveal.

I will remember to live out the
onlookers' standard reply to
EVERYTHING related to you.

"My God," they will say.
"How did she do that?"

And someone will say,
"That's Harry's niece,
one of Nussie's girls come home
from the city.
You must know her?!"

-T. D. James-Moss

"A Lesson from the Dying," A Poetry Post

For most of your life you command your own pace.

When you age,

your pace is assisted.

You may plan and attend lavish parties,

and be the belle or the beau of the ball.

When you age,

you don't get that attention

at all.

You may gather a wardrobe that 

cascades across halls and falls 

off its racks with suits and hats and 

heels and chemises and belts.

It's just as well.

You may never wear them.

Collect all your favorite records and movies;

you may never hear them. 

What you will remember 

when the embers of life start to fade

is the family you made.

Whether or not you were good to your daughter and

fair to your son.

Whether or not your marriage

could have been saved.

Whether or not you were honest and just 

or a scoundrel.

What you could do for your children

before your mind betrays you and makes you a

child again. 

Thus you should live like a titan in its simplest sense,

avoiding the drivel of daily ridiculousness and 

focusing in on the kin;

binding together the legacy of your best self in thick cords;

getting forgiveness for your wrongs;

and standing firmly and resolutely on your rights. 

Give the family you love more days than nights.

And then when you leave them,

resigned forever to a world where you no longer see them,

they will see you shining in their lives

like an eternal sun.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Colors," A Poetry Post

I thank my God for showing me

the colors of suffering,

for it was in the blues of financial strain

that I learned to pray for rain and wait 

for change. 

I thank my God for the yellows of illness,

the nauseous uncertainty of pills and ointments,

the inhale no exhale stillness of lingo,

the brightness of invasive diagnoses.

I learned to pray for rain and wait for change.

I thank my God for the greens of failure,

the availability of plenty in my emptiness,

the obvious greatness of those who were better,

the disappointing awareness of my own incompetencies.

It was there I prayed for rain and waited for change.

For the reds of frustration,

the orange-y bitter bits,

the indigo extremes of depression...

For the mute entrancing violet of stasis I 

thank my God. 

I prayed for rain and waited for change.

It was there 

I found 

my gold. 

-T. D. James-Moss