Phillis Wheatley, Awakened Mother of the Free Word

Phillis Wheatley by Unknown

Say what is sleep? and dreams how passing strange!

When action ceases, and ideas range
Licentious and unbounded o'er the plains,
Where Fancy's queen in giddy triumph reigns.

Hear in soft strains the dreaming lover sigh
To a kind fair, or rave in jealousy;
On pleasure now, and now on vengeance bent,
The lab'ring passions struggle for a vent.

What pow'r, O man! thy reason then restores,
So long suspended in nocturnal hours?

What secret hand returns the mental train,
And gives improv'd thine active pow'rs again?

From thee, O man, what gratitude should rise!

And, when from balmy sleep thou op'st thine eyes,
Let thy first thoughts be praises to the skies.

Excerpt from "Thoughts on the WORKS of PROVIDENCE." by Phillis Wheatley (Source)

Phillis Wheatley: "the first African-American poet, and the first African-American woman to publish her writing." (Wikipedia). Watch a great reading of one of my favourites, "Hymn to the Evening."

________

The grasses spell warm delightful, cracked insect green coloration, the chalky incompleteness in the waving eye of nature stares back with full recognition, restitution with human presence. Eagerly, I walk through the high rushes, stung with the tail end of a long forgetful period of mourning. The air fills my nostrils with intense humidity. An overwhelming lushness gravitates towards my brain. All the follicles from the plant world betray my unaware scents with awakening need. Aromatic, I speed through the vibrant, near-neon lime-green touches and find my way to a log cabin under the gorgeous density of a well-pollinated atmosphere, bred for the mind’s eye to pierce through to planetary secrets untold. 

Penniless, I am a drifter of smiles, a careless frame, basking in the gathering of those my age. Who do I see? I am at a loss. 

My mother! Young in her prime, she takes pity on my beleaguered state, handing me a Canadian ten-dollar bill in front of a lunch stand. The light mountain air feeds our intoxicated bliss with an embracing strength unknown in normal life, there is a silent energy about, allowing us to traverse the freedoms abreast in this long-sought after hollow of meadow and cloudless rays. I brim over with gladness, alive at once, with my friend and mother. Holding her in the sunshine womb of celestial pride, we walk through the silky meadow, renewed. Attaining the final vision, before the gully drops off the edge of a nearby cliff, I turn around and follow the nightly smoke of fellow friends, preparing for parties in the aftermath of youth, meanwhile, my mother stays behind, patiently awaiting my return, at the precipice of subterranean mystery.

_______

Mother

"The general image of 'mother' in a dream may symbolize a variety of feelings and ideas: caring, nurturing, love, acceptance, hard work, sacrifice, martyrdom, etc. The mother in your dream could also represent the 'collective unconscious,' the source of the 'water of life,' and the yin. Carl Jung suggests that women in dreams represent the collective unconscious and men the collective consciousness. Thus, the woman is that force, or current, inside of you that nudges you on and inspires you. It is your intuition and knowledge that is not necessarily attached to words."(iDream)

_______

in the deep silent tragic night,
blizzard disarray and the electric blankness
recedes throughout our psychic presence

with ethereal dismay,
morbid as the desert solitaire,
of rose-laden heights

excerpt from "interpretive direction"

JUNO SE MAMA

White Lady of Auahouret by African painter

JUNO SE MAMA came to me
                                           through my father.
He taught me about what it is to be
            Man,         Self,          Strongness,
                        It is a ritual dedicated to
My mother.
          Upon this earth, I want her to see.
I had to understand my father's house
                               before my mother's house.
JUNO SE MAMA is a prayer for all those
           Who have suffered the
                                after effects of Slavery.
Who are we?
      It is also a spiritual for the sick
and poor, light for the blind, comfort
                       to the young and old,
Cradle song for babies,
               Wind...for birds in trees,
The sound of thunder and lightning that
              BURST out over the earth.
It is a rhythm of virtue.
                     When you are all alone,
         Many songs come...in the night,
                                            I am a moon child.
I come from New Orleans
                                    the surge of the bayou.
  In my young life I worked
And dreamed.
                I wanted to sculp,
                                          to squeeze the earth
                        With my hands.
I talk with my hands.
                  Who teach me...no one.
I left my native home, New Orleans.
           My people were not popular with
                                                  the Afro-arts.
           I wanted to build,
                                             to say.
        A first Afro-American art center.
                                 Young boy, with a Man's dream,
             "and a child shall lead them."
                                   JUNO SE MAMA.
While they were running the streets,
                                I
                                  was listening.
I JUNO
             a drummer born. American.
My father
             a tuxedo drummer,
"once a tuxedo drummer, always a
                                         tuxedo drummer."
My mother's father was a captain's
                                                    drummer,
F Company, 84th Regiment, Union Army
        during the Civil war, 1863-6.
For the past 12 years I have been a
                    maker, designer,
                           a Son.....of drums.
My Afro-American Art Center will be
                  a home for the homeless,
                                         Future sons of drums.
Coltrane moves in that direction
                A man who knows
       Directions for the future depend
On how we artists of today
                                    cut the road.
Francis de Erdely, the famous artist
           Made his contribution to my
                                                     art center.
     His sketchings of me see into
                                    and understand
                   Rhythm and Afro art.
The ritual, JUNO SE MAMA, begins in a
                      Mighty cloud burst
And the rippling of the water drum
            begins beating against the
                                         air cups of the world.
Moon children...ready to be born.
                 Signs of sky, earth, water.
One is born called JUNO.
                          His father's house is the bird.
You can hear him teaching his son
                                                       how to fly.
           Fly, till you reach the sky, Float,
Fly,                                                                    Float
                       till you make a boat
           Be strong my son and show your arm.
I'm going to show you your MAMA's home
                                       She lives in the sea.
There is birth in the water
                                       in my mother's house.
No matter what has happened to us,
                  we have to sing.
                          There is always land ahead.
Earth is where it is happening,
     It's where we go from here.
             We have to sound the cry
                                              of the conch shell.
Blow the shell...
                                       blow, blow
                         till you see.
And JUNO blowed and blowed till
                                            he grooved
                                                          and grooved.

JUNO LEWIS, December 1966
       text arranged by jo ann cannon