“here i sweat the days
humming because rhythm makes persistence possible
occasionally breaking into song-and-dance”
– Wanda Coleman
Wanda Coleman was a 20th century black Californian poet from Los Angeles who, a lot like Gwendolyn Brooks, dedicated her craft to writing about the experience of being a poor black woman in America, starting in her teens. Her poem, Nocturne, holds up a kind of pointless exertion born of necessity or stubbornness, and an awareness of the things—both internal and external—that impede momentum. That ‘rhythm makes persistence possible’ is an underlying foundation of her own hum and that of the invisible others who spur her on to discover the nature of the darkness of this beautiful Nocturne.
Nocturne
running in place
my tongue has grown strong and hard
my pace is steadier my step surer
measured as circles move around me and define
this frayed self the center of at least one stubborn
cosmos
here i sweat the days
humming because rhythm makes persistence possible
occasionally breaking into song-and-dance
aware of the weight that impedes momentum
aware of wind factor and traction
(to wish i were dead? easy. the one wish that
always comes true)
as the hum of unseen fellow runners
urges me on thru this brilliant fruitless flight
point of departure is a certainty
arrival a myth
as i streak along the beginning turning back on
itself again and again. my focus dead ahead
peering. to see if
this is the dark that precedes dawn
or the darkness before the dark
Wanda Coleman (1946-2013)
From: Wicked Enchantment