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The Day I Saw Barack Obama Reading Derek Walcott’s Collected Poems Lyrics by Yusef Komunyakaa

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Was he looking for St. Lucia's light
To touch his face those first days
In the official November snow & sleet
Falling on the granite pose of Lincoln?
If he were searching for property lines
Drawn in the blood, or for a hint
Of resolve crisscrossing a border
Maybe he'd find clues in the taste of breadfruit
I could see him stopped there squinting
In crooked light, the haze of Wall Street
Touching clouds of double consciousness
An eye etched into a sign borrowed from Egypt
If he's looking for tips on basketball
How to rise up & guard the hoop
He may glean a few theories about war
But they aren't in The Star-Apple Kingdom
If he wants to finally master himself
Searching for clues to govern seagulls
In salty air, he'll find henchmen busy with locks
& chains in a ghost schooner's nocturnal calm
He's reading someone who won't speak
Of milk & honey, but of looking ahead
Beyond pillars of salt raised in a dream
Where fat bulbs split open the earth
The spine of the manifest was broken
Leaking deeds, songs & testaments
Justice stood in the shoes of mercy
& doubt was bandaged up & put to bed
Now, he looks as if he wants to eat words
Their sweet, intoxicating flavor. Banana leaf
& animal, being & nonbeing. In fact
Craving wisdom, he bites into memory
The President of the United States of America
Thumbs the pages slowly, moving from reverie
To reverie, learning why one envies the octopus
For its ink, how a man's skin becomes the final page
Credits
Yusef Komunyakaa

Yusef Komunyakaa

About “The Day I Saw Barack Obama Reading Derek Walcott’s Collected Poems” by Yusef Komunyakaa

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